Re: [PATCH 1/2] autofs4: allow autofs to work outside the initial PID namespace

[Ian Kent <raven@themaw.net>]

On Sat, 2012-11-24 at 14:35 -0800, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu> writes:
> 
> > On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Eric W. Biederman
> > <ebiederm@xmission.com> wrote:
> >> Ian Kent <raven@themaw.net> writes:
> >>
> >>> On Sat, 2012-11-24 at 10:23 +0800, Ian Kent wrote:
> >>>> On Fri, 2012-11-23 at 15:30 +0100, Miklos Szeredi wrote:
> >
> >>>> AFAICS autofs mounts mounted with MS_PRIVATE in the initial namespace do
> >>>> propagate to the clone when it's created so I'm assuming subsequent
> >>>> mounts would also. If these mounts are busy in some way they can't be
> >>>> umounted in the clone unless "/" is marked private before attempting the
> >>>> umount.
> 
> Subsequent mounts after the clone do not have a mechanism to propogate
> with MS_PRIVATE.  As creating a new mount namespaces is essentially
> an instance of mount --bind.  Those semantics are a little unintuitive
> I have to admit.
> 
> >>> This may sound stupid but if there something like, say, MS_NOPROPAGATE
> >>> then the problem I see would pretty much just go away. No more need to
> >>> umount existing mounts and container instances would be isolated. But, I
> >>> guess, I'm not considering the possibility of cloned of processes as
> >>> well .... if that makes sense, ;)
> >>
> >> Something is very weird is going on.  MS_PRIVATE should be the
> >> MS_NOPROPOGATE you are looking for.  There is also MS_UNBINDABLE.
> >> which is a stronger form of MS_PRIVATE and probably worth play with.
> >>
> >
> > MS_UNBINDABLE says:  skip this mount when copying a mount tree, such
> > as when the mount namespace is cloned.
> >
> > If you set MS_UNBINDABLE on autofs mounts then they will simply not
> > appear in a cloned namespace.  Which sounds like a good idea,  no?
> 
> Good point.  If the desire is for a mount to be managed by autofs
> setting MS_UNBINDABLE seems required.

Arrgh, I know that's something I should have looked into long ago.
The fact is that autofs mounts are directly related to a specific path
defined by automount maps that are associated with the daemon so bind
mounting them elsewhere makes no sense.

Is it necessary (or sensible) to use MS_PRIVATE with MS_UNBINDABLE?

> 
> Eric
>