xref: /linux/Documentation/filesystems/automount-support.rst (revision ba199dc909a20fe62270ae4e93f263987bb9d119)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2
3=================
4Automount Support
5=================
6
7
8Support is available for filesystems that wish to do automounting
9support (such as kAFS which can be found in fs/afs/ and NFS in
10fs/nfs/). This facility includes allowing in-kernel mounts to be
11performed and mountpoint degradation to be requested. The latter can
12also be requested by userspace.
13
14
15In-Kernel Automounting
16======================
17
18See section "Mount Traps" of  Documentation/filesystems/autofs.rst
19
20Then from userspace, you can just do something like::
21
22	[root@andromeda root]# mount -t afs \#root.afs. /afs
23	[root@andromeda root]# ls /afs
24	asd  cambridge  cambridge.redhat.com  grand.central.org
25	[root@andromeda root]# ls /afs/cambridge
26	afsdoc
27	[root@andromeda root]# ls /afs/cambridge/afsdoc/
28	ChangeLog  html  LICENSE  pdf  RELNOTES-1.2.2
29
30And then if you look in the mountpoint catalogue, you'll see something like::
31
32	[root@andromeda root]# cat /proc/mounts
33	...
34	#root.afs. /afs afs rw 0 0
35	#root.cell. /afs/cambridge.redhat.com afs rw 0 0
36	#afsdoc. /afs/cambridge.redhat.com/afsdoc afs rw 0 0
37
38
39Automatic Mountpoint Expiry
40===========================
41
42Automatic expiration of mountpoints is easy, provided you've mounted the
43mountpoint to be expired in the automounting procedure outlined separately.
44
45To do expiration, you need to follow these steps:
46
47 (1) Create at least one list off which the vfsmounts to be expired can be
48     hung.
49
50 (2) When a new mountpoint is created in the ->d_automount method, add
51     the mnt to the list using mnt_set_expiry()::
52
53             mnt_set_expiry(newmnt, &afs_vfsmounts);
54
55 (3) When you want mountpoints to be expired, call mark_mounts_for_expiry()
56     with a pointer to this list. This will process the list, marking every
57     vfsmount thereon for potential expiry on the next call.
58
59     If a vfsmount was already flagged for expiry, and if its usage count is 1
60     (it's only referenced by its parent vfsmount), then it will be deleted
61     from the namespace and thrown away (effectively unmounted).
62
63     It may prove simplest to simply call this at regular intervals, using
64     some sort of timed event to drive it.
65
66The expiration flag is cleared by calls to mntput. This means that expiration
67will only happen on the second expiration request after the last time the
68mountpoint was accessed.
69
70If a mountpoint is moved, it gets removed from the expiration list. If a bind
71mount is made on an expirable mount, the new vfsmount will not be on the
72expiration list and will not expire.
73
74If a namespace is copied, all mountpoints contained therein will be copied,
75and the copies of those that are on an expiration list will be added to the
76same expiration list.
77
78
79Userspace Driven Expiry
80=======================
81
82As an alternative, it is possible for userspace to request expiry of any
83mountpoint (though some will be rejected - the current process's idea of the
84rootfs for example). It does this by passing the MNT_EXPIRE flag to
85umount(). This flag is considered incompatible with MNT_FORCE and MNT_DETACH.
86
87If the mountpoint in question is in referenced by something other than
88umount() or its parent mountpoint, an EBUSY error will be returned and the
89mountpoint will not be marked for expiration or unmounted.
90
91If the mountpoint was not already marked for expiry at that time, an EAGAIN
92error will be given and it won't be unmounted.
93
94Otherwise if it was already marked and it wasn't referenced, unmounting will
95take place as usual.
96
97Again, the expiration flag is cleared every time anything other than umount()
98looks at a mountpoint.
99