diff --git a/kernel/cgroup.c b/kernel/cgroup.c
index 0f3527d6184a..72fcd3069a90 100644
--- a/kernel/cgroup.c
+++ b/kernel/cgroup.c
@@ -896,10 +896,13 @@ static void cgroup_diput(struct dentry *dentry, struct inode *inode)
 		mutex_unlock(&cgroup_mutex);
 
 		/*
-		 * Drop the active superblock reference that we took when we
-		 * created the cgroup
+		 * We want to drop the active superblock reference from the
+		 * cgroup creation after all the dentry refs are gone -
+		 * kill_sb gets mighty unhappy otherwise.  Mark
+		 * dentry->d_fsdata with cgroup_diput() to tell
+		 * cgroup_d_release() to call deactivate_super().
 		 */
-		deactivate_super(cgrp->root->sb);
+		dentry->d_fsdata = cgroup_diput;
 
 		/*
 		 * if we're getting rid of the cgroup, refcount should ensure
@@ -925,6 +928,13 @@ static int cgroup_delete(const struct dentry *d)
 	return 1;
 }
 
+static void cgroup_d_release(struct dentry *dentry)
+{
+	/* did cgroup_diput() tell me to deactivate super? */
+	if (dentry->d_fsdata == cgroup_diput)
+		deactivate_super(dentry->d_sb);
+}
+
 static void remove_dir(struct dentry *d)
 {
 	struct dentry *parent = dget(d->d_parent);
@@ -1532,6 +1542,7 @@ static int cgroup_get_rootdir(struct super_block *sb)
 	static const struct dentry_operations cgroup_dops = {
 		.d_iput = cgroup_diput,
 		.d_delete = cgroup_delete,
+		.d_release = cgroup_d_release,
 	};
 
 	struct inode *inode =