[PATCH] kernfs: preserve security xattrs without allocating iattrs

From: hengyul

Date: Fri Aug 21 2026 - 12:13:36 EST


From: Hengyu Liang <hengyul@xxxxxxxxxx>

Commit d5e81a5650b5 ("kernfs: avoid iattr allocation in listxattr")
made kernfs_iop_listxattr() return an empty list when the kernfs node
has no allocated kernfs_iattrs.

However, this also skips security xattr names provided by
simple_xattr_list(). As of now, applications can retrieve the SELinux
label of a sysfs file with getxattr(), but cannot do it through
listxattr().

A similar issue happened before in commit b09e0fa4b4ea ("tmpfs: implement generic xattr support").
It was fixed by commit 8b0ba61df5a1c ("fs/xattr.c: fix simple_xattr_list to always include security.* xattrs").
Perhaps this recent commit needs a fix as well.

The issue can be reproduced with a simple python program:

python3 - <<'PY'
import os

path = "/sys/kernel/warn_count"

print("getxattr:", os.getxattr(path, "security.selinux"))
print("listxattr:", os.listxattr(path))
PY

Before commit d5e81a5650b5 ("kernfs: avoid iattr allocation in listxattr"),
the result is:

getxattr: b'system_u:object_r:sysfs_t:s0\x00'
listxattr: ['security.selinux']

After that commit, the result is:

getxattr: b'system_u:object_r:sysfs_t:s0\x00'
listxattr: []

This patch will keep listxattr() consistent with getxattr() when security
xattrs are available.

Fixes: d5e81a5650b5 ("kernfs: avoid iattr allocation in listxattr")

Signed-off-by: Hengyu Liang <hengyul@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/kernfs/inode.c | 5 ++---
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fs/kernfs/inode.c b/fs/kernfs/inode.c
index 237dcdd73fc2..bc3c6b939b0e 100644
--- a/fs/kernfs/inode.c
+++ b/fs/kernfs/inode.c
@@ -142,10 +142,9 @@ ssize_t kernfs_iop_listxattr(struct dentry *dentry, char *buf, size_t size)
struct kernfs_iattrs *attrs;

attrs = kernfs_iattrs_noalloc(kn);
- if (!attrs)
- return 0;

- return simple_xattr_list(d_inode(dentry), &attrs->xattrs, buf, size);
+ return simple_xattr_list(d_inode(dentry),
+ attrs ? &attrs->xattrs : NULL, buf, size);
}

static inline void set_default_inode_attr(struct inode *inode, umode_t mode)
--
2.55.0