CVE-2026-23189: ceph: fix NULL pointer dereference in ceph_mds_auth_match()

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-02-14 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ceph: fix NULL pointer dereference in ceph_mds_auth_match() The CephFS kernel client has regression starting from 6.18-rc1. We have issue in ceph_mds_auth_match() if fs_name == NULL: const char fs_name = mdsc->fsc->mount_options->mds_namespace; ... if (auth->match.fs_name && strcmp(auth->match.fs_name, fs_name)) { / fsname mismatch, try next one */ return 0; } Patrick Donnelly suggested that: In summary, we should definitely start decoding `fs_name` from the MDSMap and do strict authorizations checks against it. Note that the `-o mds_namespace=foo` should only be used for selecting the file system to mount and nothing else. It's possible no mds_namespace is specified but the kernel will mount the only file system that exists which may have name "foo". This patch reworks ceph_mdsmap_decode() and namespace_equals() with the goal of supporting the suggested concept. Now struct ceph_mdsmap contains m_fs_name field that receives copy of extracted FS name by ceph_extract_encoded_string(). For the case of "old" CephFS file systems, it is used "cephfs" name. [ idryomov: replace redundant %*pE with %s in ceph_mdsmap_decode(), get rid of a series of strlen() calls in ceph_namespace_match(), drop changes to namespace_equals() body to avoid treating empty mds_namespace as equal, drop changes to ceph_mdsc_handle_fsmap() as namespace_equals() isn't an equivalent substitution there ]

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.12.58 before 6.12.70; from 6.17.8 before 6.18.10; 6.19-rc1, 6.19-rc2, 6.19-rc3, 6.19-rc4, 6.19-rc5, 6.19-rc6 (+2) — fixed in 6.12.70, 6.18.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.70, 6.18.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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