On Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 11:04:43AM +0800, Lizhi Xu wrote: > syzbot reported a null-ptr-deref in pick_link. [1] > > First, i_link and i_dir_seq are in the same union, they share the same memory > address, and i_dir_seq will be updated during the execution of walk_component, > which makes the value of i_link equal to i_dir_seq. > > Secondly, the chmod execution failed, which resulted in setting the mode value > of file0's inode to REG when executing ntfs_bad_inode. > > Third, when creating a symbolic link using the file0 whose inode has been marked > as bad, it is not determined whether its inode is bad, which ultimately leads to > null-ptr-deref when performing a mount operation on the symbolic link bus because > the i_link value is equal to i_dir_seq=2. > > Note: ("file0, bus" are defined in reproducer [2]) > > To avoid null-ptr-deref in pick_link, when creating a symbolic link, first check > whether the inode of file is already bad. I would really like to understand how the hell did that bad inode end up passed to d_splice_alias()/d_instantiate()/whatever it had been. That's the root cause - and it looks like ntfs is too free with make_bad_inode() in general, which might cause other problems.