[PATCH 0/3] binfmt_misc: bound the interpreters an entry can pre-open

Christian Brauner <[email protected]> Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:14:59 +0200
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.linux-fsdevel,org.kernel.vger.bpf,org.kvack.linux-mm
Message-ID <20260803-work-binfmt_misc-interplimit-v1-0-4a2435500bd9@kernel.org>
An 'F' entry opens its interpreter at registration and every exec runs a
clone of it. A 'B' entry does the same for each interpreter it binds. That
file stays open for as long as the entry lives. So it pins the file, its
inode, the mount it came from and that mount's superblock.

An entry binds at most 100 interpreters, but nothing caps the entries.
binfmt_misc is container mountable so all of this is reachable by
unprivileged users.

While the pins go away when the instance is unmounted, it's still weird
for an unprivileged namespace to be allowed to do this. And the fix is
simple.

Charge each binding to the user namespace and uid that makes it against
a new UCOUNT_BINFMT_MISC_INTERPRETERS and refuse with -ENOSPC when the
limit is hit.

A per-instance cap won't do. Instances are keyed on the user namespace, so
whatever constant I pick gets multiplied by however many namespaces the
caller cares to create. inc_ucount() charges the namespace and every one
of its ancestors, and a namespace can only ever raise its own limit, so
nesting buys nothing.

The knob is /proc/sys/user/max_binfmt_misc_interpreters, per namespace like
every other ucount. I left it at the max_threads/2 default that
fork_init() hands a new ucount type. Nothing anyone runs today comes
anywhere near that.

Selftests for all of it, including that a nested namespace can't buy
itself budget.

Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner (Amutable) <[email protected]>
---
Christian Brauner (3):
      binfmt_misc: correctly account pre-opened interpreters
      selftests/exec: test the pre-opened interpreter limit
      binfmt_misc: document the pre-opened interpreter limit

 Documentation/admin-guide/binfmt-misc.rst          |  12 +-
 fs/binfmt_misc.c                                   |  16 +-
 include/linux/binfmt_misc.h                        |   3 +
 include/linux/user_namespace.h                     |   3 +
 kernel/ucount.c                                    |   6 +
 tools/testing/selftests/exec/.gitignore            |   1 +
 tools/testing/selftests/exec/Makefile              |   6 +
 tools/testing/selftests/exec/binfmt_misc_bpf.c     |  70 +++++++
 .../selftests/exec/binfmt_misc_interplimit.c       | 232 +++++++++++++++++++++
 9 files changed, 343 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 7693ae84747b6e72a1a3d14b836f7bec11606e08
change-id: 20260803-work-binfmt_misc-interplimit-392eca4de742