Kernel panic in trailing_symlink() due to a NULL pointer dereference

Issue

• Kernel panic due to a NULL pointer dereference in trailing_symlink() with the following Call Trace:

[904752.259377] BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000018
[904752.268216] PGD 74b8c5f067 P4D 7aaa65c067 PUD 7be6f86067 PMD 0 
[904752.274922] Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
[904752.279105] CPU: 78 PID: 4000422 Comm: node Kdump: loaded Tainted: GWOE ----------- 4.18.0-240.el8.x86_64 #1
[904752.291723] Hardware name: Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630 V2/7Z71CTOLWW, BIOS AFE110P-1.01 04/08/2021
[904752.301533] RIP: 0010:trailing_symlink+0xd6/0x270
[904752.306879] Code: 83 e2 01 e8 5c 6b 0b 00 48 63 e8 85 c0 0f 85 d3 00 00 00 c7 43 44 04 00 00 00 49 8b ad 58 02 00 00 48 85 ed 0f 84 da 00 00 00 <0f> b6 45 00 3c 2f 0f 84 85 00 00 00 84 c0 0f 84 b1 00 00 00 5b 48
[904752.327932] RSP: 0018:ff46b20205f0fc98 EFLAGS: 00010206
[904752.333860] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ff46b20205f0fd30 RCX: dead000000000200
[904752.341921] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ff457865389b5c00 RDI: ff4578a6d8a7bec0
[904752.349983] RBP: 0000000000000018 R08: ff4578ad28dc6cf0 R09: 00000000633c2c6d
[904752.358041] R10: 000000000b579b8b R11: c52dce4333ba3cfd R12: ff46b20205f0fd88
[904752.366102] R13: ff457865389b5c00 R14: ff4578a6d8a7bec0 R15: 0000000000000fff
[904752.374163] FS:  000014ae4891e700(0000) GS:ff4578bfbfb80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[904752.383289] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[904752.389800] CR2: 0000000000000018 CR3: 000000723e274001 CR4: 0000000000761ee0
[904752.397860] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[904752.405922] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
[904752.413983] PKRU: 55555554
[904752.417098] Call Trace:
[904752.419927]  path_lookupat.isra.48+0x81/0x200
[904752.424887]  ? futex_wait_queue_me+0xc8/0x110
[904752.429845]  filename_lookup.part.64+0xa0/0x170
[904752.435001]  vfs_statx+0x74/0xd0
[904752.438698]  __do_sys_statx+0x3b/0x80
[904752.442883]  ? syscall_trace_enter+0x1d3/0x2c0
[904752.447931]  ? __audit_syscall_exit+0x249/0x2a0
[904752.453083]  do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x1a0
[904752.457266]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x65/0xca
[904752.463001] RIP: 0033:0x14ae4961c78d
[904752.467087] Code: 00 c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 f3 0f 1e fa 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 8b 0d cb 56 2c 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48
[904752.488141] RSP: 002b:000014ae4891dc08 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000014c
[904752.496688] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000005e34138 RCX: 000014ae4961c78d
[904752.504749] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000005e02d00 RDI: 00000000ffffff9c
[904752.512810] RBP: 000014ae4891dc10 R08: 000014ae4891dc20 R09: 000014ae4891dd30
[904752.520872] R10: 0000000000000fff R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 000014ae4891e608
[904752.528932] R13: 0000000005e34218 R14: 00007ffd812e2d90 R15: 0000000005e34218