Hi, The following backtrack was reported by our dev team. [<8010ea60>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<8010c4d8>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14) [<8010c4d8>] (show_stack) from [<803b590c>] (ubifs_xattr_set+0x210/0x3ec) [<803b590c>] (ubifs_xattr_set) from [<80272134>] (__vfs_setxattr+0x70/0x80) [<80272134>] (__vfs_setxattr) from [<803ecd8c>] (smack_d_instantiate+0x41c/0x430) [<803ecd8c>] (smack_d_instantiate) from [<803e4ef0>] (security_d_instantiate+0x34/0x54) [<803e4ef0>] (security_d_instantiate) from [<80263edc>] (d_instantiate+0x28/0x4c) [<80263edc>] (d_instantiate) from [<80392858>] (ubifs_mkdir+0x1f8/0x200) [<80392858>] (ubifs_mkdir) from [<80257124>] (vfs_mkdir+0x148/0x1dc) [<80257124>] (vfs_mkdir) from [<8025add8>] (SyS_mkdirat+0x84/0xec) [<8025add8>] (SyS_mkdirat) from [<80107dfc>] (__sys_trace_return+0x0/0x10) Looking at the code for smack_d_instantiate it's going down the following path /* * Transmuting directory */ if (S_ISDIR(inode->i_mode)) { /* * If this is a new directory and the label was * transmuted when the inode was initialized * set the transmute attribute on the directory * and mark the inode. * * If there is a transmute attribute on the * directory mark the inode. */ if (isp->smk_flags & SMK_INODE_CHANGED) { isp->smk_flags &= ~SMK_INODE_CHANGED; rc = __vfs_setxattr(dp, inode, XATTR_NAME_SMACKTRANSMUTE, TRANS_TRUE, TRANS_TRUE_SIZE, 0); } else { which ends up in ubifs_xattr_set which is expecting the inode semaphore to be locked and hence the assert message. I can reproduce this by creating a directory with SMACK64TRANSMUTE and then adding a rule with 't' set and then creating a directory mkdir test chmod 777 test chsmack -a update test chsmack -t test echo programmingapp > /proc/self/attr/current echo programmingapp update rwxat > /sys/fs/smackfs/load2 Creating a directory in test which trigger the ubifs assert. Looking at the code some more, don't we need to lock the inode when calling __vfs_setxattr above as the inode will have already been created (ubifs_init_security in ubifs_mkdir) and added to the inode hash and another process could potentially set an extended attribute on the directory whilst we are trying to add the transmute attribute here? I created a patch which put an inode_trylock around __vfs_setxattr and the ubifs assert has now disappeared in the use case described. Although this fixes things for a UBIFS I had a quick look at other filesystems to see how they handle setting extended attributes and the 2 I looked at have a i_xattr_sem which is in some wrapper structure around an inode so maybe this isn't the best solution but maybe the inode_trylock should be moved into the ubifs_xattr_set function instead of the if (check_lock) ubifs_assert(c, inode_is_locked(host)); to be more in line with what the other filesystems do. This is on a 4.9 vendor kernel for an i.MX system but looking at 5.2 I think the problem would still exist but not entirely sure. Either way is replacing the above check with inode_trylock a valid solution or is there a better way of solving this? Many Thanks, Martin.