Signed-off-by: Alexander Larsson <alexl@xxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst index cdefbe73d85c..ae194543dbda 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst @@ -492,6 +492,29 @@ directory tree on the same or different underlying filesystem, and even to a different machine. With the "inodes index" feature, trying to mount the copied layers will fail the verification of the lower root file handle. +Nesting overlayfs mounts +------------------------ + +It is possible to use a lower directory that is stored on an overlayfs +mount. For regular files this does not need any special care. However, files +that have overlayfs attributes, such as whiteouts or "overlay.*" xattrs will be +interpreted by the underlying overlayfs mount and stripped out. In order to +allow the second overlayfs mount to see the attributes they must be escaped. + +Overlayfs specific xattrs are escaped by using a special prefix of +"overlay.overlay.". So, a file with a "trusted.overlay.overlay.metacopy" xattr +in the lower dir will be exposed as a regular file with a +"trusted.overlay.metacopy" xattr in the overlayfs mount. This can be nested by +repeating the prefix multiple time, as each instance only removes one prefix. + +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. +These alternative whiteouts can be escaped using the standard xattr escape +mechanism in order to properly nest to any depth. Non-standard behavior --------------------- -- 2.41.0
