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mount_namespaces(7)
NAME DESCRIPTION SHARED SUBTREES VERSIONS CONFORMING TO NOTES EXAMPLES SEE ALSO COLOPHON
MOUNT_NAMESPACES(7)                   Linux Programmer's Manual                  MOUNT_NAMESPACES(7)



NAME
       mount_namespaces - overview of Linux mount namespaces

DESCRIPTION
       For an overview of namespaces, see namespaces(7).

       Mount  namespaces provide isolation of the list of mount points seen by the processes in each
       namespace instance.  Thus, the processes in each of the mount namespace  instances  will  see
       distinct single-directory hierarchies.

       The    views    provided    by    the    /proc/[pid]/mounts,    /proc/[pid]/mountinfo,    and
       /proc/[pid]/mountstats files (all described in proc(5)) correspond to the mount namespace  in
       which  the process with the PID [pid] resides.  (All of the processes that reside in the same
       mount namespace will see the same view in these files.)

       A new mount namespace is created using either clone(2) or  unshare(2)  with  the  CLONE_NEWNS
       flag.  When a new mount namespace is created, its mount point list is initialized as follows:

       *  If  the namespace is created using clone(2), the mount point list of the child's namespace
          is a copy of the mount point list in the parent's namespace.

       *  If the namespace is created using unshare(2), the mount point list of the new namespace is
          a copy of the mount point list in the caller's previous mount namespace.

       Subsequent  modifications  to  the  mount point list (mount(2) and umount(2)) in either mount
       namespace will not (by default) affect the mount point list seen in the other namespace  (but
       see the following discussion of shared subtrees).

   Restrictions on mount namespaces
       Note the following points with respect to mount namespaces:

       *  Each  mount  namespace  has an owner user namespace.  As explained above, when a new mount
          namespace is created, its mount point list is initialized as a copy  of  the  mount  point
          list  of  another  mount namespace.  If the new namespace and the namespace from which the
          mount point list was copied are owned by different user namespaces,  then  the  new  mount
          namespace is considered less privileged.

       *  When  creating  a  less  privileged  mount  namespace,  shared mounts are reduced to slave
          mounts.  (Shared and slave mounts are discussed below.)  This ensures that  mappings  per‐
          formed  in  less  privileged  mount namespaces will not propagate to more privileged mount
          namespaces.

       *  Mounts that come as a single unit from a more privileged mount namespace  are  locked  to‐
          gether  and  may  not  be separated in a less privileged mount namespace.  (The unshare(2)
          CLONE_NEWNS operation brings across all of the mounts from the original mount namespace as
          a single unit, and recursive mounts that propagate between mount namespaces propagate as a
          single unit.)

       *  The mount(2) flags MS_RDONLY, MS_NOSUID, MS_NOEXEC, and  the  "atime"  flags  (MS_NOATIME,
          MS_NODIRATIME,  MS_RELATIME) settings become locked when propagated from a more privileged
          to a less privileged mount namespace, and may not be changed in the less privileged  mount
          namespace.

       *  A  file  or  directory that is a mount point in one namespace that is not a mount point in
          another namespace, may be renamed, unlinked, or removed (rmdir(2)) in the mount  namespace
          in  which it is not a mount point (subject to the usual permission checks).  Consequently,
          the mount point is removed in the mount namespace where it was a mount point.

          Previously (before Linux 3.18), attempting to unlink, rename, or remove a file  or  direc‐
          tory  that  was  a mount point in another mount namespace would result in the error EBUSY.
          That behavior had technical problems of enforcement (e.g., for NFS) and permitted  denial-
          of-service attacks against more privileged users.  (i.e., preventing individual files from
          being updated by bind mounting on top of them).

SHARED SUBTREES
       After the implementation of mount namespaces was completed, experience showed that the isola‐
       tion that they provided was, in some cases, too great.  For example, in order to make a newly
       loaded optical disk available in all mount namespaces, a mount operation was required in each
       namespace.  For this use case, and others, the shared subtree feature was introduced in Linux
       2.6.15.  This feature allows for automatic,  controlled  propagation  of  mount  and  unmount
       events  between  namespaces (or, more precisely, between the members of a peer group that are
       propagating events to one another).

       Each mount point is marked (via mount(2)) as having one of the following propagation types:

       MS_SHARED
              This mount point shares events with members of a peer group.  Mount and unmount events
              immediately  under  this mount point will propagate to the other mount points that are
              members of the peer group.  Propagation here means that the same mount or unmount will
              automatically  occur  under  all  of  the  other mount points in the peer group.  Con‐
              versely, mount and unmount events that take place under peer mount points will  propa‐
              gate to this mount point.

       MS_PRIVATE
              This  mount point is private; it does not have a peer group.  Mount and unmount events
              do not propagate into or out of this mount point.

       MS_SLAVE
              Mount and unmount events propagate into this mount point from a (master)  shared  peer
              group.  Mount and unmount events under this mount point do not propagate to any peer.

              Note  that a mount point can be the slave of another peer group while at the same time
              sharing mount and unmount events with a peer group of which it  is  a  member.   (More
              precisely, one peer group can be the slave of another peer group.)

       MS_UNBINDABLE
              This  is  like a private mount, and in addition this mount can't be bind mounted.  At‐
              tempts to bind mount this mount (mount(2) with the MS_BIND flag) will fail.

              When a recursive bind mount (mount(2) with the MS_BIND and MS_REC flags) is  performed
              on  a  directory  subtree, any bind mounts within the subtree are automatically pruned
              (i.e., not replicated) when replicating that subtree to produce the target subtree.

       For a discussion of the propagation type assigned to a new mount, see NOTES.

       The propagation type is a per-mount-point setting; some mount points may be marked as  shared
       (with each shared mount point being a member of a distinct peer group), while others are pri‐
       vate (or slaved or unbindable).

       Note that a mount's propagation type determines whether mounts and unmounts of  mount  points
       immediately under the mount point are propagated.  Thus, the propagation type does not affect
       propagation of events for grandchildren and further removed descendant  mount  points.   What
       happens  if the mount point itself is unmounted is determined by the propagation type that is
       in effect for the parent of the mount point.

       Members are added to a peer group when a mount point is marked as shared and either:

       *  the mount point is replicated during the creation of a new mount namespace; or

       *  a new bind mount is created from the mount point.

       In both of these cases, the new mount point joins the peer group of which the existing  mount
       point is a member.

       A  new peer group is also created when a child mount point is created under an existing mount
       point that is marked as shared.  In this case, the new child mount point is  also  marked  as
       shared  and the resulting peer group consists of all the mount points that are replicated un‐
       der the peers of parent mount.

       A mount ceases to be a member of a peer group when either the mount is explicitly  unmounted,
       or  when  the  mount is implicitly unmounted because a mount namespace is removed (because it
       has no more member processes).

       The propagation type of the mount points in a mount namespace can be discovered via the  "op‐
       tional  fields"  exposed  in  /proc/[pid]/mountinfo.  (See proc(5) for details of this file.)
       The following tags can appear in the optional fields for a record in that file:

       shared:X
              This mount point is shared in peer group X.  Each peer group has a unique ID  that  is
              automatically  generated  by  the  kernel, and all mount points in the same peer group
              will show the same ID.  (These IDs are assigned starting from the value 1, and may  be
              recycled when a peer group ceases to have any members.)

       master:X
              This mount is a slave to shared peer group X.

       propagate_from:X (since Linux 2.6.26)
              This  mount  is  a  slave and receives propagation from shared peer group X.  This tag
              will always appear in conjunction with a master:X tag.  Here, X is the  closest  domi‐
              nant  peer  group under the process's root directory.  If X is the immediate master of
              the mount, or if there is no dominant peer group under the same root,  then  only  the
              master:X  field  is  present and not the propagate_from:X field.  For further details,
              see below.

       unbindable
              This is an unbindable mount.

       If none of the above tags is present, then this is a private mount.

   MS_SHARED and MS_PRIVATE example
       Suppose that on a terminal in the initial mount namespace, we mark one mount point as  shared
       and another as private, and then view the mounts in /proc/self/mountinfo:

           sh1# mount --make-shared /mntS
           sh1# mount --make-private /mntP
           sh1# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           77 61 8:17 / /mntS rw,relatime shared:1
           83 61 8:15 / /mntP rw,relatime

       From  the  /proc/self/mountinfo  output, we see that /mntS is a shared mount in peer group 1,
       and that /mntP has no optional tags, indicating that it is a private mount.   The  first  two
       fields  in each record in this file are the unique ID for this mount, and the mount ID of the
       parent mount.  We can further inspect this file to see that the parent mount point  of  /mntS
       and /mntP is the root directory, /, which is mounted as private:

           sh1# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | awk '$1 == 61' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           61 0 8:2 / / rw,relatime

       On a second terminal, we create a new mount namespace where we run a second shell and inspect
       the mounts:

           $ PS1='sh2# ' sudo unshare -m --propagation unchanged sh
           sh2# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           222 145 8:17 / /mntS rw,relatime shared:1
           225 145 8:15 / /mntP rw,relatime

       The new mount namespace received a copy of the initial mount namespace's mount points.  These
       new  mount  points  maintain  the  same  propagation  types, but have unique mount IDs.  (The
       --propagation unchanged option prevents unshare(1) from marking all mounts  as  private  when
       creating a new mount namespace, which it does by default.)

       In  the  second  terminal, we then create submounts under each of /mntS and /mntP and inspect
       the set-up:

           sh2# mkdir /mntS/a
           sh2# mount /dev/sdb6 /mntS/a
           sh2# mkdir /mntP/b
           sh2# mount /dev/sdb7 /mntP/b
           sh2# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           222 145 8:17 / /mntS rw,relatime shared:1
           225 145 8:15 / /mntP rw,relatime
           178 222 8:22 / /mntS/a rw,relatime shared:2
           230 225 8:23 / /mntP/b rw,relatime

       From the above, it can be seen that /mntS/a was created as shared  (inheriting  this  setting
       from its parent mount) and /mntP/b was created as a private mount.

       Returning  to the first terminal and inspecting the set-up, we see that the new mount created
       under the shared mount point /mntS propagated to its peer mount (in the initial  mount  name‐
       space), but the new mount created under the private mount point /mntP did not propagate:

           sh1# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           77 61 8:17 / /mntS rw,relatime shared:1
           83 61 8:15 / /mntP rw,relatime
           179 77 8:22 / /mntS/a rw,relatime shared:2

   MS_SLAVE example
       Making  a mount point a slave allows it to receive propagated mount and unmount events from a
       master shared peer group, while preventing it from propagating events to that  master.   This
       is  useful  if  we want to (say) receive a mount event when an optical disk is mounted in the
       master shared peer group (in another mount namespace), but want to prevent mount and  unmount
       events under the slave mount from having side effects in other namespaces.

       We  can  demonstrate the effect of slaving by first marking two mount points as shared in the
       initial mount namespace:

           sh1# mount --make-shared /mntX
           sh1# mount --make-shared /mntY
           sh1# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           132 83 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           133 83 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime shared:2

       On a second terminal, we create a new mount namespace and inspect the mount points:

           sh2# unshare -m --propagation unchanged sh
           sh2# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           168 167 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           169 167 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime shared:2

       In the new mount namespace, we then mark one of the mount points as a slave:

           sh2# mount --make-slave /mntY
           sh2# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           168 167 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           169 167 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime master:2

       From the above output, we see that /mntY is now a slave mount that is  receiving  propagation
       events from the shared peer group with the ID 2.

       Continuing in the new namespace, we create submounts under each of /mntX and /mntY:

           sh2# mkdir /mntX/a
           sh2# mount /dev/sda3 /mntX/a
           sh2# mkdir /mntY/b
           sh2# mount /dev/sda5 /mntY/b

       When we inspect the state of the mount points in the new mount namespace, we see that /mntX/a
       was created as a new shared mount (inheriting the "shared" setting from its parent mount) and
       /mntY/b was created as a private mount:

           sh2# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           168 167 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           169 167 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime master:2
           173 168 8:3 / /mntX/a rw,relatime shared:3
           175 169 8:5 / /mntY/b rw,relatime

       Returning  to  the  first  terminal  (in  the initial mount namespace), we see that the mount
       /mntX/a propagated to the peer (the shared /mntX), but the mount /mntY/b was not propagated:

           sh1# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           132 83 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           133 83 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime shared:2
           174 132 8:3 / /mntX/a rw,relatime shared:3

       Now we create a new mount point under /mntY in the first shell:

           sh1# mkdir /mntY/c
           sh1# mount /dev/sda1 /mntY/c
           sh1# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           132 83 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           133 83 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime shared:2
           174 132 8:3 / /mntX/a rw,relatime shared:3
           178 133 8:1 / /mntY/c rw,relatime shared:4

       When we examine the mount points in the second mount namespace, we see that in this case  the
       new  mount  has  been propagated to the slave mount point, and that the new mount is itself a
       slave mount (to peer group 4):

           sh2# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           168 167 8:23 / /mntX rw,relatime shared:1
           169 167 8:22 / /mntY rw,relatime master:2
           173 168 8:3 / /mntX/a rw,relatime shared:3
           175 169 8:5 / /mntY/b rw,relatime
           179 169 8:1 / /mntY/c rw,relatime master:4

   MS_UNBINDABLE example
       One of the primary purposes of unbindable mounts is to  avoid  the  "mount  point  explosion"
       problem  when  repeatedly  performing  bind mounts of a higher-level subtree at a lower-level
       mount point.  The problem is illustrated by the following shell session.

       Suppose we have a system with the following mount points:

           # mount | awk '{print $1, $2, $3}'
           /dev/sda1 on /
           /dev/sdb6 on /mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /mntY

       Suppose furthermore that we wish to recursively bind mount the root directory  under  several
       users' home directories.  We do this for the first user, and inspect the mount points:

           # mount --rbind / /home/cecilia/
           # mount | awk '{print $1, $2, $3}'
           /dev/sda1 on /
           /dev/sdb6 on /mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/cecilia/mntY

       When we repeat this operation for the second user, we start to see the explosion problem:

           # mount --rbind / /home/henry
           # mount | awk '{print $1, $2, $3}'
           /dev/sda1 on /
           /dev/sdb6 on /mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/cecilia/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/henry
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/henry/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/henry/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/henry/home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/henry/home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/henry/home/cecilia/mntY

       Under  /home/henry,  we  have not only recursively added the /mntX and /mntY mounts, but also
       the recursive mounts of those directories under /home/cecilia that were created in the previ‐
       ous step.  Upon repeating the step for a third user, it becomes obvious that the explosion is
       exponential in nature:

           # mount --rbind / /home/otto
           # mount | awk '{print $1, $2, $3}'
           /dev/sda1 on /
           /dev/sdb6 on /mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/cecilia/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/henry
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/henry/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/henry/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/henry/home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/henry/home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/henry/home/cecilia/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/otto
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/otto/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/otto/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/otto/home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/otto/home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/otto/home/cecilia/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/otto/home/henry
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/otto/home/henry/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/otto/home/henry/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/otto/home/henry/home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/otto/home/henry/home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/otto/home/henry/home/cecilia/mntY

       The mount explosion problem in the above scenario can be avoided by making each  of  the  new
       mounts  unbindable.   The effect of doing this is that recursive mounts of the root directory
       will not replicate the unbindable mounts.  We make such a mount for the first user:

           # mount --rbind --make-unbindable / /home/cecilia

       Before going further, we show that unbindable mounts are indeed unbindable:

           # mkdir /mntZ
           # mount --bind /home/cecilia /mntZ
           mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /home/cecilia,
                  missing codepage or helper program, or other error

                  In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
                  dmesg | tail or so.

       Now we create unbindable recursive bind mounts for the other two users:

           # mount --rbind --make-unbindable / /home/henry
           # mount --rbind --make-unbindable / /home/otto

       Upon examining the list of mount points, we see there has been no explosion of mount  points,
       because the unbindable mounts were not replicated under each user's directory:

           # mount | awk '{print $1, $2, $3}'
           /dev/sda1 on /
           /dev/sdb6 on /mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/cecilia
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/cecilia/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/cecilia/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/henry
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/henry/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/henry/mntY
           /dev/sda1 on /home/otto
           /dev/sdb6 on /home/otto/mntX
           /dev/sdb7 on /home/otto/mntY

   Propagation type transitions
       The  following  table  shows  the  effect  that  applying a new propagation type (i.e., mount
       --make-xxxx) has on the existing propagation type of a mount point.  The rows  correspond  to
       existing propagation types, and the columns are the new propagation settings.  For reasons of
       space, "private" is abbreviated as "priv" and "unbindable" as "unbind".

                     make-shared   make-slave      make-priv  make-unbind
       ─────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       shared       │shared        slave/priv [1]  priv       unbind
       slave        │slave+shared  slave [2]       priv       unbind
       slave+shared │slave+shared  slave           priv       unbind
       private      │shared        priv [2]        priv       unbind
       unbindable   │shared        unbind [2]      priv       unbind

       Note the following details to the table:

       [1] If a shared mount is the only mount in its peer group, making it  a  slave  automatically
           makes it private.

       [2] Slaving a nonshared mount has no effect on the mount.

   Bind (MS_BIND) semantics
       Suppose that the following command is performed:

           mount --bind A/a B/b

       Here, A is the source mount point, B is the destination mount point, a is a subdirectory path
       under the mount point A, and b is a subdirectory path under the mount point B.  The  propaga‐
       tion type of the resulting mount, B/b, depends on the propagation types of the mount points A
       and B, and is summarized in the following table.

                                  source(A)
                          shared  private    slave         unbind
       ──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────
       dest(B)  shared   │shared  shared     slave+shared  invalid
                nonshared│shared  private    slave         invalid

       Note that a recursive bind of a subtree follows the same semantics as for a bind operation on
       each  mount  in the subtree.  (Unbindable mounts are automatically pruned at the target mount
       point.)

       For further details, see Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt  in  the  kernel  source
       tree.

   Move (MS_MOVE) semantics
       Suppose that the following command is performed:

           mount --move A B/b

       Here,  A is the source mount point, B is the destination mount point, and b is a subdirectory
       path under the mount point B.  The propagation type of the resulting mount, B/b,  depends  on
       the propagation types of the mount points A and B, and is summarized in the following table.

                                  source(A)
                          shared  private    slave         unbind
       ──────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────
       dest(B)  shared   │shared  shared     slave+shared  invalid
                nonshared│shared  private    slave         unbindable

       Note: moving a mount that resides under a shared mount is invalid.

       For  further  details,  see  Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt in the kernel source
       tree.

   Mount semantics
       Suppose that we use the following command to create a mount point:

           mount device B/b

       Here, B is the destination mount point, and b is a subdirectory path under the mount point B.
       The propagation type of the resulting mount, B/b, follows the same rules as for a bind mount,
       where the propagation type of the source mount is considered always to be private.

   Unmount semantics
       Suppose that we use the following command to tear down a mount point:

           unmount A

       Here, A is a mount point on B/b, where B is the parent mount and b is a subdirectory path un‐
       der  the mount point B.  If B is shared, then all most-recently-mounted mounts at b on mounts
       that receive propagation from mount B and do not have submounts under them are unmounted.

   The /proc/[pid]/mountinfo propagate_from tag
       The propagate_from:X tag is shown in the optional fields of a /proc/[pid]/mountinfo record in
       cases  where a process can't see a slave's immediate master (i.e., the pathname of the master
       is not reachable from the filesystem root directory) and so cannot  determine  the  chain  of
       propagation between the mounts it can see.

       In  the  following  example, we first create a two-link master-slave chain between the mounts
       /mnt, /tmp/etc, and /mnt/tmp/etc.  Then the chroot(1) command is used to  make  the  /tmp/etc
       mount  point  unreachable  from  the root directory, creating a situation where the master of
       /mnt/tmp/etc is not reachable from the (new) root directory of the process.

       First, we bind mount the root directory onto /mnt and then bind mount /proc at  /mnt/proc  so
       that after the later chroot(1) the proc(5) filesystem remains visible at the correct location
       in the chroot-ed environment.

           # mkdir -p /mnt/proc
           # mount --bind / /mnt
           # mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc

       Next, we ensure that the /mnt mount is a shared mount in a new peer group (with no peers):

           # mount --make-private /mnt  # Isolate from any previous peer group
           # mount --make-shared /mnt
           # cat /proc/self/mountinfo | grep '/mnt' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           239 61 8:2 / /mnt ... shared:102
           248 239 0:4 / /mnt/proc ... shared:5

       Next, we bind mount /mnt/etc onto /tmp/etc:

           # mkdir -p /tmp/etc
           # mount --bind /mnt/etc /tmp/etc
           # cat /proc/self/mountinfo | egrep '/mnt|/tmp/' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           239 61 8:2 / /mnt ... shared:102
           248 239 0:4 / /mnt/proc ... shared:5
           267 40 8:2 /etc /tmp/etc ... shared:102

       Initially, these two mount points are in the same peer group, but we then make the /tmp/etc a
       slave  of /mnt/etc, and then make /tmp/etc shared as well, so that it can propagate events to
       the next slave in the chain:

           # mount --make-slave /tmp/etc
           # mount --make-shared /tmp/etc
           # cat /proc/self/mountinfo | egrep '/mnt|/tmp/' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           239 61 8:2 / /mnt ... shared:102
           248 239 0:4 / /mnt/proc ... shared:5
           267 40 8:2 /etc /tmp/etc ... shared:105 master:102

       Then we bind mount /tmp/etc onto /mnt/tmp/etc.  Again, the two mount points are initially  in
       the same peer group, but we then make /mnt/tmp/etc a slave of /tmp/etc:

           # mkdir -p /mnt/tmp/etc
           # mount --bind /tmp/etc /mnt/tmp/etc
           # mount --make-slave /mnt/tmp/etc
           # cat /proc/self/mountinfo | egrep '/mnt|/tmp/' | sed 's/ - .*//'
           239 61 8:2 / /mnt ... shared:102
           248 239 0:4 / /mnt/proc ... shared:5
           267 40 8:2 /etc /tmp/etc ... shared:105 master:102
           273 239 8:2 /etc /mnt/tmp/etc ... master:105

       From  the  above,  we see that /mnt is the master of the slave /tmp/etc, which in turn is the
       master of the slave /mnt/tmp/etc.

       We then chroot(1) to the /mnt directory, which renders the mount with ID 267 unreachable from
       the (new) root directory:

           # chroot /mnt

       When  we examine the state of the mounts inside the chroot-ed environment, we see the follow‐
       ing:

           # cat /proc/self/mountinfo | sed 's/ - .*//'
           239 61 8:2 / / ... shared:102
           248 239 0:4 / /proc ... shared:5
           273 239 8:2 /etc /tmp/etc ... master:105 propagate_from:102

       Above, we see that the mount with ID 273 is a slave whose master is the peer group 105.   The
       mount  point  for that master is unreachable, and so a propagate_from tag is displayed, indi‐
       cating that the closest dominant peer group (i.e., the nearest reachable mount in  the  slave
       chain)  is  the  peer group with the ID 102 (corresponding to the /mnt mount point before the
       chroot(1) was performed.

VERSIONS
       Mount namespaces first appeared in Linux 2.4.19.

CONFORMING TO
       Namespaces are a Linux-specific feature.

NOTES
       The propagation type assigned to a new mount point depends on the  propagation  type  of  the
       parent  mount.   If the mount point has a parent (i.e., it is a non-root mount point) and the
       propagation type of the parent is MS_SHARED, then the propagation type of the  new  mount  is
       also MS_SHARED.  Otherwise, the propagation type of the new mount is MS_PRIVATE.

       Notwithstanding  the  fact  that the default propagation type for new mount points is in many
       cases MS_PRIVATE, MS_SHARED is typically more useful.  For this reason, systemd(1)  automati‐
       cally  remounts  all  mount points as MS_SHARED on system startup.  Thus, on most modern sys‐
       tems, the default propagation type is in practice MS_SHARED.

       Since, when one uses unshare(1) to create a mount namespace, the goal is commonly to  provide
       full isolation of the mount points in the new namespace, unshare(1) (since util-linux version
       2.27) in turn reverses the step performed by systemd(1), by making all mount  points  private
       in  the  new  namespace.  That is, unshare(1) performs the equivalent of the following in the
       new mount namespace:

           mount --make-rprivate /

       To prevent this, one can use the --propagation unchanged option to unshare(1).

       An application that creates a new mount namespace directly using clone(2) or  unshare(2)  may
       desire  to  prevent  propagation of mount events to other mount namespaces (as is done by un‐‐
       share(1)).  This can be done by changing the propagation type of  mount  points  in  the  new
       namespace to either MS_SLAVE or MS_PRIVATE.  using a call such as the following:

           mount(NULL, "/", MS_SLAVE | MS_REC, NULL);

       For  a  discussion of propagation types when moving mounts (MS_MOVE) and creating bind mounts
       (MS_BIND), see Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt.

EXAMPLES
       See pivot_root(2).

SEE ALSO
       unshare(1), clone(2), mount(2),  pivot_root(2),  setns(2),  umount(2),  unshare(2),  proc(5),
       namespaces(7), user_namespaces(7), findmnt(8), mount(8), pivot_root(8), umount(8)

       Documentation/filesystems/sharedsubtree.txt in the kernel source tree.

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part  of  release  5.10 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the
       project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be  found
       at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                        2020-11-01                          MOUNT_NAMESPACES(7)

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