The loop in exec_binprm() permits depth values 0 through 5, up to 5 successive binfmt rewrites (setting bprm->interpreter) until the 6th one would fail on depth > 5 and return -ELOOP. The comment claimed 4 levels, which was wrong. Adjusting the code to allow only 4 rewrites would be breaking userland, so fix the comment and not the code. Reproducer (a chain of shebanged scripts followed by an ELF binary): #!/bin/sh tmp=$(mktemp -d) echo $tmp cd $tmp mk () { echo $2 > $1; chmod +x $1; } for i in $(seq 4); do mk $i "#!$((i + 1))" done mk 5 '#!/bin/true' ./1 && echo '5 binfmt rewrites OK (1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> /bin/true)' mk 5 '#!6' mk 6 '#!/bin/true' ./1 || echo '6 binfmt rewrites KO (1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> /bin/true)' Signed-off-by: Alan Urmancheev --- fs/exec.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/fs/exec.c b/fs/exec.c index b92fe7db1..d5993cedc 100644 --- a/fs/exec.c +++ b/fs/exec.c @@ -1717,7 +1717,7 @@ static int exec_binprm(struct linux_binprm *bprm) old_vpid = task_pid_nr_ns(current, task_active_pid_ns(current->parent)); rcu_read_unlock(); - /* This allows 4 levels of binfmt rewrites before failing hard. */ + /* This allows 5 levels of binfmt rewrites before failing hard. */ for (depth = 0;; depth++) { struct file *exec; if (depth > 5) -- 2.53.0