To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] 2.5.72: follow_mount / follow_link
Date: 24 Jun 2003 08:42:56 -0700
Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara CA
Message-ID: <bd9ri0$fn2$1@cesium.transmeta.com>
References: <3EF86337.1020103@sun.com> <20030624145418.GP6754@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk>
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Followup to:  <20030624145418.GP6754@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk>
By author:    viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 10:41:59AM -0400, Mike Waychison wrote:
> 
> > The changes made in fs/namei.c@1.42 break this behaviour iff the dentry 
> > being follow_link'ed is a root dentry.  This is becauseo
> 
> ... mixing symlinks and mounting is ripe with very ugly races and corner
> cases.  Not allowed - symlink can't be a mountpoint or a mounted object.
>

Unfortunately, this is probably the only realistic way to ever get
working direct mounts, so please don't dismiss it out of hand.
follow_link on a directory has turned out to be a really useful way of
doing automounting.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
Architectures needed: ia64 m68k mips64 ppc ppc64 s390 s390x sh v850 x86-64
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