2.6.35-rc4: mount results with and without MS_SILENT differ

[Denys Vlasenko <vda.linux@googlemail.com>]

This issue was discovered by users of busybox.
Apparently, mount() calls with and without MS_SILENT

The following script was run in an empty test directory:

mkdir -p mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2
touch mount.dir/a mount.dir/b
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared1 mount.shared1
mount -vv --make-rshared mount.shared1
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared2 mount.shared2
mount -vv --make-rshared mount.shared2
mount -vv --bind mount.shared2 mount.shared1
mount -vv --bind mount.dir     mount.shared2
ls -R mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
rm -f mount.dir/a mount.dir/b mount.dir/c
rmdir mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2


mount -vv was used to show the mount() call arguments and result.
Output shows that flag argument has 0x00008000 = MS_SILENT bit:

mount: mount('mount.shared1','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared1','',0x0010c000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared2','',0x0010c000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('mount.dir','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount.dir:
a
b

mount.shared1:

mount.shared2:
a
b


After adding --loud option to remove MS_SILENT bit from just one mount cmd:

mkdir -p mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2
touch mount.dir/a mount.dir/b
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared1 mount.shared1 2>&1
mount -vv --make-rshared mount.shared1               2>&1
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared2 mount.shared2 2>&1
mount -vv --loud --make-rshared mount.shared2               2>&1  # <-HERE
mount -vv --bind mount.shared2 mount.shared1         2>&1
mount -vv --bind mount.dir     mount.shared2         2>&1
ls -R mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2      2>&1
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
rm -f mount.dir/a mount.dir/b mount.dir/c
rmdir mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2


The result is different now - look closely at mount.shared1 directory listing.
Now it does show files 'a' and 'b':

mount: mount('mount.shared1','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared1','',0x0010c000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared2','',0x00104000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('mount.dir','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0

mount.dir:
a
b

mount.shared1:
a
b

mount.shared2:
a
b


I am not asking whether mount command should or should not use MS_SILENT bit.
It's an important question, but it doesn't belong to lkml.

My question is, intuitively, MS_SILENT should only affect (suppress)
kernel messages, it should never affect the outcome of the mount() call, right?

Here it is obviously not the case - the behavior is different. Is it a bug?

-- 
vda