[PATCH] fat: reject name longer than NAME_MAX in msdos_format_name()
From: Zizhi Wo
Date: Mon Jun 29 2026 - 09:30:22 EST
From: Zizhi Wo <wozizhi@xxxxxxxxxx>
msdos_format_name() performs no upper-bound check on the input name length.
It silently truncates an arbitrarily long name into the 8.3 form (11 bytes)
and returns success. The subsequent fat_scan() then matches only against
these 11 truncated bytes, so it returns an inode as long as any entry with
the same 8.3 name exists on disk.
For example, passing a 300-byte name of all 'A's returns 0 with res set to
"AAAAAAAA" (8 'A's + 3 padding spaces), reporting success for a name far
longer than NAME_MAX.
As a result, when a user calls open() on a path component longer than
NAME_MAX (255) bytes, the VFS only enforces PATH_MAX, not the length of an
individual component. The dentry keeps the original long name but gets an
inode attached and becomes positive. Later in vfs_open() -> fsnotify_open()
-> fanotify_info_copy_name() triggers WARN_ON_ONCE(), and the event is
reported to userspace with an empty name.
vfat is not affected, as create goes through xlate_to_uni() which refuses
names longer than FAT_LFN_LEN.
Fix this by checking 'len > NAME_MAX' at the entry of msdos_format_name(),
the single entry point for all msdos name handling, aligning with the
NAME_MAX check that xfs/9p/ceph/simple_lookup() perform at lookup.
Signed-off-by: Zizhi Wo <wozizhi@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/fat/namei_msdos.c | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)
diff --git a/fs/fat/namei_msdos.c b/fs/fat/namei_msdos.c
index 0fd2971ad4b1..c93e05d35ef8 100644
--- a/fs/fat/namei_msdos.c
+++ b/fs/fat/namei_msdos.c
@@ -27,10 +27,13 @@ static int msdos_format_name(const unsigned char *name, int len,
{
unsigned char *walk;
unsigned char c;
int space;
+ if (len > NAME_MAX)
+ return -ENAMETOOLONG;
+
if (name[0] == '.') { /* dotfile because . and .. already done */
if (opts->dotsOK) {
/* Get rid of dot - test for it elsewhere */
name++;
len--;
--
2.52.0