diff --git a/fs/namei.c b/fs/namei.c
index 8631664..432d6bc 100644
--- a/fs/namei.c
+++ b/fs/namei.c
@@ -227,10 +227,10 @@
 
 int permission(struct inode *inode, int mask, struct nameidata *nd)
 {
+	umode_t mode = inode->i_mode;
 	int retval, submask;
 
 	if (mask & MAY_WRITE) {
-		umode_t mode = inode->i_mode;
 
 		/*
 		 * Nobody gets write access to a read-only fs.
@@ -247,6 +247,13 @@
 	}
 
 
+	/*
+	 * MAY_EXEC on regular files requires special handling: We override
+	 * filesystem execute permissions if the mode bits aren't set.
+	 */
+	if ((mask & MAY_EXEC) && S_ISREG(mode) && !(mode & S_IXUGO))
+		return -EACCES;
+
 	/* Ordinary permission routines do not understand MAY_APPEND. */
 	submask = mask & ~MAY_APPEND;
 	if (inode->i_op && inode->i_op->permission)