sysfs: don't remove existing directory on update failure

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sysfs: don't remove existing directory on update failure When sysfs_update_group() is called for a named group and create_files() fails (e.g. -ENOMEM), internal_create_group() calls kernfs_remove(kn) on the group directory. In the update path, kn was obtained via kernfs_find_and_get() and refers to a directory that already existed before this call. Removing it silently destroys a sysfs group that the caller did not create. Only remove the directory if we created it ourselves. On update failure the directory remains as it is left empty by remove_files() inside create_files(), but can be repopulated by a retry.

Timeline

1. Jul 19, 2026, 3:41 PM UTCCVE published

Affected versions

• Linux Linux

  Version range not reported

• Linux Linux

  4.19

References 8