[PATCH] exfat: fix reading a directory whose FAT chain is longer than its size
From: Hengyu Liang
Date: Thu Oct 15 2026 - 11:12:59 EST
Commit 08cf4a8181b4 ("exfat: use exfat_chain_advance helper") made the
directory code walk the clusters of a directory with
exfat_chain_advance().
However, exfat_chain_advance() returns -EIO once it has walked as many
clusters as the size of the directory says. The FAT chain of a directory
can be longer than that, because some cameras stop updating the size,
see commit 1e5654de0f51 ("exfat: handle wrong stream entry size in
exfat_readdir()"). As of now, opening such a directory fails with EIO as
soon as the chain is two clusters longer than the size. Reading a
directory that has a FAT chain after a seek past its end fails with EIO
too.
The issue can be reproduced with an image in which the size of a
directory with 200 files and 7 clusters is lowered to 2 clusters:
mount -o loop exfat.img /mnt
ls /mnt/d | wc -l
Before commit 08cf4a8181b4 ("exfat: use exfat_chain_advance helper"),
the result is:
200
After that commit, ls fails with "Input/output error" and the result is:
0
This patch will make exfat_chain_advance() follow the FAT to its end
when the directory has a FAT chain, as the code did before, and keep the
size check for a directory without one.
Fixes: 08cf4a8181b4 ("exfat: use exfat_chain_advance helper")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Hengyu Liang <hengyul@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/exfat/exfat_fs.h | 28 +++++++++++++++++++---------
1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
diff --git a/fs/exfat/exfat_fs.h b/fs/exfat/exfat_fs.h
index a9131fe03302..f324c4cba26a 100644
--- a/fs/exfat/exfat_fs.h
+++ b/fs/exfat/exfat_fs.h
@@ -623,19 +623,29 @@ static inline int exfat_chain_advance(struct super_block *sb,
struct exfat_chain *chain, unsigned int step)
{
unsigned int clu = chain->dir;
+ unsigned int i;
- if (unlikely(chain->size < step))
- return -EIO;
+ if (chain->flags == ALLOC_NO_FAT_CHAIN) {
+ if (unlikely(chain->size < step))
+ return -EIO;
- if (exfat_cluster_walk(sb, &clu, step, chain->flags))
- return -EIO;
+ chain->size -= step;
+ chain->dir = chain->size ? clu + step : EXFAT_EOF_CLUSTER;
+ return 0;
+ }
- chain->size -= step;
+ /*
+ * Only the FAT tells where a chain of this kind ends. The size can be
+ * smaller than the chain, see commit 1e5654de0f51 ("exfat: handle
+ * wrong stream entry size in exfat_readdir()").
+ */
+ for (i = 0; i < step && clu != EXFAT_EOF_CLUSTER; i++) {
+ if (exfat_get_next_cluster(sb, &clu))
+ return -EIO;
+ }
- if (chain->size == 0 && chain->flags == ALLOC_NO_FAT_CHAIN)
- chain->dir = EXFAT_EOF_CLUSTER;
- else
- chain->dir = clu;
+ chain->size -= min(chain->size, step);
+ chain->dir = clu;
return 0;
}
--
2.53.0