Linux Kernel Daily: Critical Filesystem and Driver Fixes

Transcript

Good morning. This is Linux Kernel Daily for May 20th, 2026.

Linus Torvalds merged seven significant pull requests today, all focused on critical fixes and stability improvements.

The largest merge addressed ATA driver issues, specifically fixing deferred non-NCQ command handling for Port Multipliers. The changes improve performance for systems using FIS-Based Switching and restore compatibility with Command-Based Switching configurations.

A substantial NTFS filesystem update resolved multiple security vulnerabilities and corruption issues. Key fixes include preventing buffer overflows, fixing use-after-free conditions, and properly validating MFT records. The update addresses heap over-reads when cluster sizes are smaller than page size and ensures proper synchronization of MFT mirror writes.

Memory management received fourteen hotfixes, with nine targeting MM subsystems. Notable improvements include fixing memory block reference leaks during hotplug operations and resolving spurious warnings when unmapping device-private pages.

The SMB server component received critical fixes for three null pointer dereferences and a memory leak in POSIX ACL handling. Build system improvements include stack buffer overflow prevention in modpost tools and Pacman package versioning fixes for release candidate builds.

Two commits from individual contributors addressed specific build tool vulnerabilities, including bounded sprintf chains that could silently corrupt the stack during module alias generation.

What's next: These fixes target the 7.1-rc5 release cycle, focusing on stability improvements before the final release. Additional testing is expected for the ATA Port Multiplier changes and NTFS security fixes.

That's your Linux kernel update for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow's briefing.