[PATCH] keys: big_key: Reserve the final quota before destroying the payload

From: Daehyeon Ko

Date: Fri Oct 16 2026 - 00:00:34 EST


A big_key is charged a fixed 16 bytes of key quota, regardless of the
actual payload size. big_key_update() currently reserves the actual new
payload length before destroying the old payload, while the subsequent
generic_key_instantiate() reserves the fixed quota length.

For an update to a payload shorter than 16 bytes, the first reservation
temporarily returns quota. Another key operation by the same user can
consume that quota before generic_key_instantiate() tries to reserve it
again. If that second reservation fails, the key remains instantiated but
its old big_key payload has already been destroyed. Reading a
buffer-backed key or revoking a shmem-backed key then dereferences a NULL
payload pointer.

On a KASAN build, reading a buffer-backed key reports:

BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in big_key_read+0x110/0x310
Read of size 64 at addr 0000000000000000
...
big_key_read+0x110/0x310
keyctl_read_key+0x2da/0x550

Revoking a shmem-backed key reports, with oops=panic:

Oops: general protection fault
KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x68-0x6f]
RIP: vfs_truncate+0xa2/0x730
big_key_revoke+0xbd/0xe0
key_revoke+0xc0/0x1a0
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception

Reserve the final fixed quota length before destroying the old payload.
The reservation in generic_key_instantiate() then has no quota delta and
cannot fail for this reason after the destructive step.

Fixes: b6f61c314649 ("keys: Implement update for the big_key type")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Assisted-by: LLM
Signed-off-by: Daehyeon Ko <4ncienth@xxxxxxxxx>
---
security/keys/big_key.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/security/keys/big_key.c b/security/keys/big_key.c
index 268f702df380e..6aff1a73c7b38 100644
--- a/security/keys/big_key.c
+++ b/security/keys/big_key.c
@@ -195,7 +195,7 @@ int big_key_update(struct key *key, struct key_preparsed_payload *prep)
{
int ret;

- ret = key_payload_reserve(key, prep->datalen);
+ ret = key_payload_reserve(key, prep->quotalen);
if (ret < 0)
return ret;

--
2.55.0