mount_setattr.2: Clarify the description of "detached" mounts

From email:

>> Thanks. I made it "detached". Elsewhere, the page already explains
>> that a detached mount is one that:
>>
>>           must have been created by calling open_tree(2) with the
>>           OPEN_TREE_CLONE flag and it must not already have been
>>           visible in the filesystem.
>>
>> Which seems a fine explanation.
>>
>> ????
>> But, just a thought... "visible in the filesystem" seems not quite accurate.
>> What you really mean I guess is that it must not already have been
>> /visible in the filesystem hierarchy/previously mounted/something else/,
>> right?
I suppose that I should have clarified that my main problem was
that you were using the word "filesystem" in a way that I find
unconventional/ambiguous. I mean, I normally take the term
"filesystem" to be "a storage system for folding files".
Here, you are using "filesystem" to mean something else, what
I might call like "the single directory hierarchy" or "the
filesystem hierarchy" or "the list of mount points".

> A detached mount is created via the OPEN_TREE_CLONE flag. It is a
> separate new mount so "previously mounted" is not applicable.
> A detached mount is _related_ to what the MS_BIND flag gives you with
> mount(2). However, they differ conceptually and technically. A MS_BIND
> mount(2) is always visible in the fileystem when mount(2) returns, i.e.
> it is discoverable by regular path-lookup starting within the
> filesystem.
>
> However, a detached mount can be seen as a split of MS_BIND into two
> distinct steps:
> 1. fd_tree = open_tree(OPEN_TREE_CLONE): create a new mount
> 2. move_mount(fd_tree, <somewhere>):     attach the mount to the filesystem
>
> 1. and 2. together give you the equivalent of MS_BIND.
> In between 1. and 2. however the mount is detached. For the kernel
> "detached" means that an anonymous mount namespace is attached to it
> which doen't appear in proc and has a 0 sequence number (Technically,
> there's a bit of semantical argument to be made that "attached" and
> "detached" are ambiguous as they could also be taken to mean "does or
> does not have a parent mount". This ambiguity e.g. appears in
> do_move_mount(). That's why the kernel itself calls it an "anonymous
> mount". However, an OPEN_TREE_CLONE-detached mount of course doesn't
> have a parent mount so it works.).
>
> For userspace it's better to think of detached and attached in terms of
> visibility in the filesystem or in a mount namespace. That's more
> straightfoward, more relevant, and hits the target in 90% of the cases.
>
> However, the better and clearer picture is to say that a
> OPEN_TREE_CLONE-detached mount is a mount that has never been
> move_mount()ed. Which in turn can be defined as the detached mount has
> never been made visible in a mount namespace. Once that has happened the
> mount is irreversibly an attached mount.
>
> I keep thinking that maybe we should just say "anonymous mount"
> everywhere. So changing the wording to:
I'm not against the word "detached". To user space, I think it is a
little more meaningful than "anonymous". For the moment, I'll stay with
"detached", but if you insist on "anonymous", I'll probably change it.

> [...]
> EINVAL The mount that is to be ID mapped is not an anonymous mount;
> that is, the mount has already been visible in a mount namespace.
I like that text *a lot* better! Thanks very much for suggesting
wordings. It makes my life much easier.

I've made the text:

       EINVAL The mount that is to be ID mapped is not a detached
              mount; that is, the mount has not previously been
              visible in a mount namespace.

> [...]
> The mount must be an anonymous mount; that is, it must have been
> created by calling open_tree(2) with the OPEN_TREE_CLONE flag and it
> must not already have been visible in a mount namespace, i.e. it must
> not have been attached to the filesystem hierarchy with syscalls such
> as move_mount() syscall.
And that too! I've made the text:

       •  The mount must be a detached mount; that is, it must have
          been created by calling open_tree(2) with the
          OPEN_TREE_CLONE flag and it must not already have been
          visible in a mount namespace.  (To put things another way:
          the mount must not have been attached to the filesystem
          hierarchy with a system call such as move_mount(2).)

Reported-by: Christian Brauner <christian.brauner@ubuntu.com>
Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
This commit is contained in:
Michael Kerrisk 2021-08-12 05:41:56 +02:00
parent 45ea537cf2
commit 20e6e6ed79
1 changed files with 6 additions and 2 deletions

View File

@ -502,7 +502,7 @@ The underlying filesystem does not support ID-mapped mounts.
.TP .TP
.B EINVAL .B EINVAL
The mount that is to be ID mapped is not a detached mount; The mount that is to be ID mapped is not a detached mount;
that is, the mount is already visible in the filesystem. that is, the mount has not previously been visible in a mount namespace.
.TP .TP
.B EINVAL .B EINVAL
A partial access-time setting was specified in A partial access-time setting was specified in
@ -652,7 +652,11 @@ it must have been created by calling
.BR open_tree (2) .BR open_tree (2)
with the with the
.B OPEN_TREE_CLONE .B OPEN_TREE_CLONE
flag and it must not already have been visible in the filesystem. flag and it must not already have been visible in a mount namespace.
(To put things another way:
the mount must not have been attached to the filesystem hierarchy
with a system call such as
.BR move_mount (2).)
.PP .PP
ID mappings can be created for user IDs, group IDs, and project IDs. ID mappings can be created for user IDs, group IDs, and project IDs.
An ID mapping is essentially a mapping of a range of user or group IDs into An ID mapping is essentially a mapping of a range of user or group IDs into