# CVE-2025-40237: fs/notify: call exportfs_encode_fid with s_umount

> A race condition in the Linux kernel's inotify subsystem can cause a null pointer dereference and system crash when reading file descriptor info during an overlayfs unmount.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 4 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-40237, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-40237, GHSA-rg97-jhp7-4449, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-40237, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-40237, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-40237

## What is CVE-2025-40237?

CVE-2025-40237 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 4 Dec 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs/notify: call exportfs_encode_fid with s_umount

Calling intotify_show_fdinfo() on fd watching an overlayfs inode, while
the overlayfs is being unmounted, can lead to dereferencing NULL ptr.

This issue was found by syzkaller.

Race Condition Diagram:

Thread 1                           Thread 2
--------                           --------

generic_shutdown_super()
 shrink_dcache_for_umount
  sb->s_root = NULL

                    |
                    |             vfs_read()
                    |              inotify_fdinfo()
                    |               * inode get from mark *
                    |               show_mark_fhandle(m, inode)
                    |                exportfs_encode_fid(inode, ..)
                    |                 ovl_encode_fh(inode, ..)
                    |                  ovl_check_encode_origin(inode)
                    |                   * deref i_sb->s_root *
                    |
                    |
                    v
 fsnotify_sb_delete(sb)

Which then leads to:

[   32.133461] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000006: 0000 [#1] SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC KASAN NOPTI
[   32.134438] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000030-0x0000000000000037]
[   32.135032] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 4468 Comm: systemd-coredum Not tainted 6.17.0-rc6 #22 PREEMPT(none)

<snip registers, unreliable trace>

[   32.143353] Call Trace:
[   32.143732]  ovl_encode_fh+0xd5/0x170
[   32.144031]  exportfs_encode_inode_fh+0x12f/0x300
[   32.144425]  show_mark_fhandle+0xbe/0x1f0
[   32.145805]  inotify_fdinfo+0x226/0x2d0
[   32.146442]  inotify_show_fdinfo+0x1c5/0x350
[   32.147168]  seq_show+0x530/0x6f0
[   32.147449]  seq_read_iter+0x503/0x12a0
[   32.148419]  seq_read+0x31f/0x410
[   32.150714]  vfs_read+0x1f0/0x9e0
[   32.152297]  ksys_read+0x125/0x240

IOW ovl_check_encode_origin derefs inode->i_sb->s_root, after it was set
to NULL in the unmount path.

Fix it by protecting calling exportfs_encode_fid() from
show_mark_fhandle() with s_umount lock.

This form of fix was suggested by Amir in [1].

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAOQ4uxhbDwhb+2Brs1UdkoF0a3NSdBAOQPNfEHjahrgoKJpLEw@mail.gmail.com/

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-40237?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-40237?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-40237 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-40237 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-40237 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-40237 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 4 Dec 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-40237 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-40237/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-40237/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-40237
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-40237
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-40237

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-40237/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.