diff -NurpP --minimal a/fs/fcntl.c b/fs/fcntl.c
--- a/fs/fcntl.c	2005-01-23 12:21:08.000000000 +0100
+++ b/fs/fcntl.c	2005-01-23 00:52:23.000000000 +0100
@@ -191,10 +191,12 @@ asmlinkage long sys_dup2(unsigned int ol
 	FD_SET(newfd, files->open_fds);
 	FD_CLR(newfd, files->close_on_exec);
 	spin_unlock(&files->file_lock);
-	vx_openfd_inc(newfd);
 
 	if (tofree)
 		filp_close(tofree, files);
+	else
+		vx_openfd_inc(newfd);	/* fd was unused */
+
 	err = newfd;
 out:
 	return err;