diff --git a/fs/overlayfs/namei.c b/fs/overlayfs/namei.c
index 654bea1a5ac9f38c587919d1fac6d53fd6867ee0..e08164156cfe60777a2c47573547b4dca8fbd692 100644
--- a/fs/overlayfs/namei.c
+++ b/fs/overlayfs/namei.c
@@ -635,6 +635,7 @@ struct dentry *ovl_lookup(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 		}
 
 		if (d.redirect) {
+			err = -ENOMEM;
 			upperredirect = kstrdup(d.redirect, GFP_KERNEL);
 			if (!upperredirect)
 				goto out_put_upper;