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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt | 73 |
1 files changed, 69 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt index 7a05329844d2..6ea1e64d1464 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt @@ -203,10 +203,6 @@ Because lower layer redirects cannot be verified with the index, enabling NFS export support on an overlay filesystem with no upper layer requires turning off redirect follow (e.g. "redirect_dir=nofollow"). -When the NFS export feature is enabled, all directory index entries are -verified on mount time to check that upper file handles are not stale. -This verification may cause significant overhead in some cases. - Non-directories --------------- @@ -334,6 +330,75 @@ found lower directory does not match the stored origin, that directory will not be merged with the upper directory. + +NFS export +---------- + +When the underlying filesystems supports NFS export and the "nfs_export" +feature is enabled, an overlay filesystem may be exported to NFS. + +With the "nfs_export" feature, on copy_up of any lower object, an index +entry is created under the index directory. The index entry name is the +hexadecimal representation of the copy up origin file handle. For a +non-directory object, the index entry is a hard link to the upper inode. +For a directory object, the index entry has an extended attribute +"trusted.overlay.upper" with an encoded file handle of the upper +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 + +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 + +This encoding format is identical to the encoding format file handles that +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. + +Decoding a non-directory file handle may return a disconnected dentry. +copy_up of that disconnected dentry will create an upper index entry with +no upper alias. + +When overlay filesystem has multiple lower layers, a middle layer +directory may have a "redirect" to lower directory. Because middle layer +"redirects" are not indexed, a lower file handle that was encoded from the +"redirect" origin directory, cannot be used to find the middle or upper +layer directory. Similarly, a lower file handle that was encoded from a +descendant of the "redirect" origin directory, cannot be used to +reconstruct a connected overlay path. To mitigate the cases of +directories that cannot be decoded from a lower file handle, these +directories are copied up on encode and encoded as an upper file handle. +On an overlay filesystem with no upper layer this mitigation cannot be +used NFS export in this setup requires turning off redirect follow (e.g. +"redirect_dir=nofollow"). + +The overlay filesystem does not support non-directory connectable file +handles, so exporting with the 'subtree_check' exportfs configuration will +cause failures to lookup files over NFS. + +When the NFS export feature is enabled, all directory index entries are +verified on mount time to check that upper file handles are not stale. +This verification may cause significant overhead in some cases. + + Testsuite --------- |