In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs/fhandle.c: fix a race in call of has_locked_children() may_decode_fh() is calling has_locked_children() while holding no locks. That's an oopsable race... The rest of the callers are safe since they are holding namespace_sem and are guaranteed a positive refcount on the mount in question. Rename the current has_locked_children() to __has_locked_children(), make it static and switch the fs/namespace.c users to it. Make has_locked_children() a wrapper for __has_locked_children(), calling the latter under read_seqlock_excl(&mount_lock).