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@@ -201,6 +201,40 @@ rightmost one and going left. In the above example lower1 will be the
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top, lower2 the middle and lower3 the bottom layer.
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+Sharing and copying layers
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+--------------------------
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+
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+Lower layers may be shared among several overlay mounts and that is indeed
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+a very common practice. An overlay mount may use the same lower layer
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+path as another overlay mount and it may use a lower layer path that is
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+beneath or above the path of another overlay lower layer path.
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+
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+Using an upper layer path and/or a workdir path that are already used by
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+another overlay mount is not allowed and will fail with EBUSY. Using
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+partially overlapping paths is not allowed but will not fail with EBUSY.
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+
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+Mounting an overlay using an upper layer path, where the upper layer path
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+was previously used by another mounted overlay in combination with a
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+different lower layer path, is allowed, unless the "inodes index" feature
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+is enabled.
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+
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+With the "inodes index" feature, on the first time mount, an NFS file
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+handle of the lower layer root directory, along with the UUID of the lower
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+filesystem, are encoded and stored in the "trusted.overlay.origin" extended
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+attribute on the upper layer root directory. On subsequent mount attempts,
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+the lower root directory file handle and lower filesystem UUID are compared
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+to the stored origin in upper root directory. On failure to verify the
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+lower root origin, mount will fail with ESTALE. An overlayfs mount with
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+"inodes index" enabled will fail with EOPNOTSUPP if the lower filesystem
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+does not support NFS export, lower filesystem does not have a valid UUID or
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+if the upper filesystem does not support extended attributes.
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+
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+It is quite a common practice to copy overlay layers to a different
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+directory tree on the same or different underlying filesystem, and even
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+to a different machine. With the "inodes index" feature, trying to mount
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+the copied layers will fail the verification of the lower root file handle.
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+
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+
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Non-standard behavior
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---------------------
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