untrusted comment: verify with openbsd-79-base.pub
RWTSdNN9A3yvWPIZh5TuaTQZ6wwxb+O9S3BWn2Qe5wRI0dz6iUeHC31A7XGjvDzdmLr+sJYRAS3C7bXsRaliSvxOHUiD1Ktg4wA=

OpenBSD 7.9 errata 011, August 22, 2026:

A race in pledge(2) namei check could trigger a kernel panic.

Apply by doing:
    signify -Vep /etc/signify/openbsd-79-base.pub -x 011_nipledge.patch.sig \
        -m - | (cd /usr/src && patch -p0)

And then rebuild and install a new kernel:
    KK=`sysctl -n kern.osversion | cut -d# -f1`
    cd /usr/src/sys/arch/`machine`/compile/$KK
    make obj
    make config
    make
    make install

Index: sys/kern/kern_pledge.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/sys/kern/kern_pledge.c,v
diff -u -p -r1.356 kern_pledge.c
--- sys/kern/kern_pledge.c	27 Mar 2026 05:15:25 -0000	1.356
+++ sys/kern/kern_pledge.c	14 Aug 2026 15:59:25 -0000
@@ -652,7 +652,7 @@ pledge_namei(struct proc *p, struct name
 	ple = p->p_pledge;
 	nip = ni->ni_pledge;
 	if (nip == 0)
-		panic("pledge_namei: ni_pledge");
+		return pledge_fail(p, EPERM, 0);
 
 	/* Doing a permitted execve() */
 	if ((nip & PLEDGE_EXEC) && (ple & PLEDGE_EXEC))