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

What is CVE-2026-23189?

CVE-2026-23189 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 14 Feb 2026. 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:

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 ]

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23189?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23189?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-23189 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23189 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-23189, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23189, GHSA-r35m-5r25-v2fx, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2026-23189, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23189.