diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst | 120 |
1 files changed, 67 insertions, 53 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst index 0407f361f32a..165514401441 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ objects in the original filesystem. On 64bit systems, even if all overlay layers are not on the same underlying filesystem, the same compliant behavior could be achieved with the "xino" feature. The "xino" feature composes a unique object -identifier from the real object st_ino and an underlying fsid index. +identifier from the real object st_ino and an underlying fsid number. The "xino" feature uses the high inode number bits for fsid, because the underlying filesystems rarely use the high inode number bits. In case the underlying inode number does overflow into the high xino bits, overlay @@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ Where both upper and lower objects are directories, a merged directory is formed. At mount time, the two directories given as mount options "lowerdir" and -"upperdir" are combined into a merged directory: +"upperdir" are combined into a merged directory:: mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,\ workdir=/work /merged @@ -145,7 +145,9 @@ filesystem, an overlay filesystem needs to record in the upper filesystem that files have been removed. This is done using whiteouts and opaque directories (non-directories are always opaque). -A whiteout is created as a character device with 0/0 device number. +A whiteout is created as a character device with 0/0 device number or +as a zero-size regular file with the xattr "trusted.overlay.whiteout". + When a whiteout is found in the upper level of a merged directory, any matching name in the lower level is ignored, and the whiteout itself is also hidden. @@ -154,6 +156,13 @@ A directory is made opaque by setting the xattr "trusted.overlay.opaque" to "y". Where the upper filesystem contains an opaque directory, any directory in the lower filesystem with the same name is ignored. +An opaque directory should not conntain any whiteouts, because they do not +serve any purpose. A merge directory containing regular files with the xattr +"trusted.overlay.whiteout", should be additionally marked by setting the xattr +"trusted.overlay.opaque" to "x" on the merge directory itself. +This is needed to avoid the overhead of checking the "trusted.overlay.whiteout" +on all entries during readdir in the common case. + readdir ------- @@ -172,12 +181,12 @@ directory is being read. This is unlikely to be noticed by many programs. seek offsets are assigned sequentially when the directories are read. -Thus if +Thus if: - - read part of a directory - - remember an offset, and close the directory - - re-open the directory some time later - - seek to the remembered offset + - read part of a directory + - remember an offset, and close the directory + - re-open the directory some time later + - seek to the remembered offset there may be little correlation between the old and new locations in the list of filenames, particularly if anything has changed in the @@ -290,9 +299,9 @@ Permission checking in the overlay filesystem follows these principles: 2) task creating the overlay mount MUST NOT gain additional privileges 3) non-mounting task MAY gain additional privileges through the overlay, - compared to direct access on underlying lower or upper filesystems + compared to direct access on underlying lower or upper filesystems -This is achieved by performing two permission checks on each access +This is achieved by performing two permission checks on each access: a) check if current task is allowed access based on local DAC (owner, group, mode and posix acl), as well as MAC checks @@ -311,11 +320,11 @@ to create setups where the consistency rule (1) does not hold; normally, however, the mounting task will have sufficient privileges to perform all operations. -Another way to demonstrate this model is drawing parallels between +Another way to demonstrate this model is drawing parallels between:: mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,... /merged -and +and:: cp -a /lower /upper mount --bind /upper /merged @@ -328,7 +337,7 @@ Multiple lower layers --------------------- Multiple lower layers can now be given using the colon (":") as a -separator character between the directory names. For example: +separator character between the directory names. For example:: mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower1:/lower2:/lower3 /merged @@ -340,13 +349,13 @@ rightmost one and going left. In the above example lower1 will be the top, lower2 the middle and lower3 the bottom layer. Note: directory names containing colons can be provided as lower layer by -escaping the colons with a single backslash. For example: +escaping the colons with a single backslash. For example:: mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/a\:lower\:\:dir /merged Since kernel version v6.8, directory names containing colons can also be configured as lower layer using the "lowerdir+" mount options and the -fsconfig syscall from new mount api. For example: +fsconfig syscall from new mount api. For example:: fsconfig(fs_fd, FSCONFIG_SET_STRING, "lowerdir+", "/a:lower::dir", 0); @@ -356,7 +365,7 @@ as an octal characters (\072) when displayed in /proc/self/mountinfo. Metadata only copy up --------------------- -When metadata only copy up feature is enabled, overlayfs will only copy +When the "metacopy" feature is enabled, overlayfs will only copy up metadata (as opposed to whole file), when a metadata specific operation like chown/chmod is performed. Full file will be copied up later when file is opened for WRITE operation. @@ -405,7 +414,7 @@ A normal lower layer is not allowed to be below a data-only layer, so single colon separators are not allowed to the right of double colon ("::") separators. -For example: +For example:: mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/l1:/l2:/l3::/do1::/do2 /merged @@ -419,7 +428,7 @@ to the absolute path of the "lower data" file in the "data-only" lower layer. Since kernel version v6.8, "data-only" lower layers can also be added using the "datadir+" mount options and the fsconfig syscall from new mount api. -For example: +For example:: fsconfig(fs_fd, FSCONFIG_SET_STRING, "lowerdir+", "/l1", 0); fsconfig(fs_fd, FSCONFIG_SET_STRING, "lowerdir+", "/l2", 0); @@ -429,7 +438,7 @@ For example: fs-verity support ----------------------- +----------------- During metadata copy up of a lower file, if the source file has fs-verity enabled and overlay verity support is enabled, then the @@ -492,27 +501,27 @@ though it will not result in a crash or deadlock. Mounting an overlay using an upper layer path, where the upper layer path was previously used by another mounted overlay in combination with a -different lower layer path, is allowed, unless the "inodes index" feature -or "metadata only copy up" feature is enabled. +different lower layer path, is allowed, unless the "index" or "metacopy" +features are enabled. -With the "inodes index" feature, on the first time mount, an NFS file +With the "index" feature, on the first time mount, an NFS file handle of the lower layer root directory, along with the UUID of the lower filesystem, are encoded and stored in the "trusted.overlay.origin" extended attribute on the upper layer root directory. On subsequent mount attempts, the lower root directory file handle and lower filesystem UUID are compared to the stored origin in upper root directory. On failure to verify the lower root origin, mount will fail with ESTALE. An overlayfs mount with -"inodes index" enabled will fail with EOPNOTSUPP if the lower filesystem +"index" enabled will fail with EOPNOTSUPP if the lower filesystem does not support NFS export, lower filesystem does not have a valid UUID or if the upper filesystem does not support extended attributes. -For "metadata only copy up" feature there is no verification mechanism at +For the "metacopy" feature, there is no verification mechanism at mount time. So if same upper is mounted with different set of lower, mount probably will succeed but expect the unexpected later on. So don't do it. It is quite a common practice to copy overlay layers to a different directory tree on the same or different underlying filesystem, and even -to a different machine. With the "inodes index" feature, trying to mount +to a different machine. With the "index" feature, trying to mount the copied layers will fail the verification of the lower root file handle. Nesting overlayfs mounts @@ -534,8 +543,9 @@ A lower dir with a regular whiteout will always be handled by the overlayfs mount, so to support storing an effective whiteout file in an overlayfs mount an alternative form of whiteout is supported. This form is a regular, zero-size file with the "overlay.whiteout" xattr set, inside a directory with the -"overlay.whiteouts" xattr set. Such whiteouts are never created by overlayfs, -but can be used by userspace tools (like containers) that generate lower layers. +"overlay.opaque" xattr set to "x" (see `whiteouts and opaque directories`_). +These alternative whiteouts are never created by overlayfs, but can be used by +userspace tools (like containers) that generate lower layers. These alternative whiteouts can be escaped using the standard xattr escape mechanism in order to properly nest to any depth. @@ -547,20 +557,21 @@ filesystem. This is the list of cases that overlayfs doesn't currently handle: -a) POSIX mandates updating st_atime for reads. This is currently not -done in the case when the file resides on a lower layer. + a) POSIX mandates updating st_atime for reads. This is currently not + done in the case when the file resides on a lower layer. -b) If a file residing on a lower layer is opened for read-only and then -memory mapped with MAP_SHARED, then subsequent changes to the file are not -reflected in the memory mapping. + b) If a file residing on a lower layer is opened for read-only and then + memory mapped with MAP_SHARED, then subsequent changes to the file are not + reflected in the memory mapping. -c) If a file residing on a lower layer is being executed, then opening that -file for write or truncating the file will not be denied with ETXTBSY. + c) If a file residing on a lower layer is being executed, then opening that + file for write or truncating the file will not be denied with ETXTBSY. The following options allow overlayfs to act more like a standards compliant filesystem: -1) "redirect_dir" +redirect_dir +```````````` Enabled with the mount option or module option: "redirect_dir=on" or with the kernel config option CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR=y. @@ -568,7 +579,8 @@ the kernel config option CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR=y. If this feature is disabled, then rename(2) on a lower or merged directory will fail with EXDEV ("Invalid cross-device link"). -2) "inode index" +index +````` Enabled with the mount option or module option "index=on" or with the kernel config option CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX=y. @@ -577,7 +589,8 @@ If this feature is disabled and a file with multiple hard links is copied up, then this will "break" the link. Changes will not be propagated to other names referring to the same inode. -3) "xino" +xino +```` Enabled with the mount option "xino=auto" or "xino=on", with the module option "xino_auto=on" or with the kernel config option @@ -604,7 +617,7 @@ a crash or deadlock. Offline changes, when the overlay is not mounted, are allowed to the upper tree. Offline changes to the lower tree are only allowed if the -"metadata only copy up", "inode index", "xino" and "redirect_dir" features +"metacopy", "index", "xino" and "redirect_dir" features have not been used. If the lower tree is modified and any of these features has been used, the behavior of the overlay is undefined, though it will not result in a crash or deadlock. @@ -644,12 +657,13 @@ directory inode. When encoding a file handle from an overlay filesystem object, the following rules apply: -1. For a non-upper object, encode a lower file handle from lower inode -2. For an indexed object, encode a lower file handle from copy_up origin -3. For a pure-upper object and for an existing non-indexed upper object, - encode an upper file handle from upper inode + 1. For a non-upper object, encode a lower file handle from lower inode + 2. For an indexed object, encode a lower file handle from copy_up origin + 3. For a pure-upper object and for an existing non-indexed upper object, + encode an upper file handle from upper inode The encoded overlay file handle includes: + - Header including path type information (e.g. lower/upper) - UUID of the underlying filesystem - Underlying filesystem encoding of underlying inode @@ -659,15 +673,15 @@ are stored in extended attribute "trusted.overlay.origin". When decoding an overlay file handle, the following steps are followed: -1. Find underlying layer by UUID and path type information. -2. Decode the underlying filesystem file handle to underlying dentry. -3. For a lower file handle, lookup the handle in index directory by name. -4. If a whiteout is found in index, return ESTALE. This represents an - overlay object that was deleted after its file handle was encoded. -5. For a non-directory, instantiate a disconnected overlay dentry from the - decoded underlying dentry, the path type and index inode, if found. -6. For a directory, use the connected underlying decoded dentry, path type - and index, to lookup a connected overlay dentry. + 1. Find underlying layer by UUID and path type information. + 2. Decode the underlying filesystem file handle to underlying dentry. + 3. For a lower file handle, lookup the handle in index directory by name. + 4. If a whiteout is found in index, return ESTALE. This represents an + overlay object that was deleted after its file handle was encoded. + 5. For a non-directory, instantiate a disconnected overlay dentry from the + decoded underlying dentry, the path type and index inode, if found. + 6. For a directory, use the connected underlying decoded dentry, path type + and index, to lookup a connected overlay dentry. Decoding a non-directory file handle may return a disconnected dentry. copy_up of that disconnected dentry will create an upper index entry with @@ -770,9 +784,9 @@ Testsuite There's a testsuite originally developed by David Howells and currently maintained by Amir Goldstein at: - https://github.com/amir73il/unionmount-testsuite.git +https://github.com/amir73il/unionmount-testsuite.git -Run as root: +Run as root:: # cd unionmount-testsuite # ./run --ov --verify |