fsnotify: clear PARENT_WATCHED flags lazily

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fsnotify: clear PARENT_WATCHED flags lazily In some setups directories can have many (usually negative) dentries. Hence __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags() function can take a significant amount of time. Since the bulk of this function happens under inode->i_lock this causes a significant contention on the lock when we remove the watch from the directory as the __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags() call from fsnotify_recalc_mask() races with __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags() calls from __fsnotify_parent() happening on children. This can lead upto softlockup reports reported by users. Fix the problem by calling fsnotify_update_children_dentry_flags() to set PARENT_WATCHED flags only when parent starts watching children. When parent stops watching children, clear false positive PARENT_WATCHED flags lazily in __fsnotify_parent() for each accessed child.

Source published

9 Oct 2024 14:02:54 UTC

Source modified

15 Oct 2026 00:51:06 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

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