Re: [PATCH v4 2/4] procfs: add "pidns" mount option

[Christian Brauner]

On Thu, Aug 07, 2025 at 05:17:56PM +1000, Aleksa Sarai wrote:
> On 2025-08-07, Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On 2025-08-06, Askar Safin <safinaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > I just realised that we probably also want to support FSCONFIG_SET_PATH
> > > 
> > > I just checked kernel code. Indeed nobody uses FSCONFIG_SET_PATH.
> > > Moreover, fsparam_path macro is present since 5.1. And for all this
> > > time nobody used it. So, let's just remove FSCONFIG_SET_PATH. Nobody
> > > used it, so this will not break anything.
> > > 
> > > If you okay with that, I can submit patch, removing it.
> > 
> > I would prefer you didn't -- "*at()" semantics are very useful to a lot
> > of programs (*especially* AT_EMPTY_PATH). I would like the pidns= stuff
> > to support it, and probably also overlayfs...
> > 
> > I suspect the primary issue is that when migrating to the new mount API,
> > filesystem devs just went with the easiest thing to use
> > (FSCONFIG_SET_STRING) even though FSCONFIG_SET_PATH would be better. I
> > suspect the lack of documentation around fsconfig(2) played a part too.
> > 
> > My impression is that interest in the minutia about fsconfig(2) is quite
> > low on the list of priorities for most filesystem devs, and so the neat
> > aspects of fsconfig(2) haven't been fully utilised. (In LPC last year,
> > we struggled to come to an agreement on how filesystems should use the
> > read(2)-based error interface.)
> > 
> > We can very easily move fsparam_string() or fsparam_file_or_string()
> > parameters to fsparam_path() and a future fsparam_file_or_path(). I
> > would much prefer that as a user.
> 
> Actually, fsparam_bdev() accepts FSCONFIG_SET_PATH in a very roundabout
> way (and the checker doesn't verify anything...?). So there is at least
> one user (ext4's "journal_path"), it's just not well-documented (which
> I'm trying to fix ;]).
> 
> My plan is to update fs_lookup_param() to be more useful for the (fairly
> common) use-case of wanting to support paths and file descriptors, and
> going through to clean up some of these unused fsparam_* helpers (or
> fsparam_* helpers being abused to implement stuff that the fs_parser
> core already supports).
> 
> At the very least, overlayfs, ext4, and this procfs patchset can make
> use of it.

I've never bothered with actually iplementing FSCONFIG_SET_PATH
semantics because I think it's really weird to allow *at semantics when
setting filesystem parameters. I always thought it's better to force
userspace to provide a file descriptor for the final destination instead
of doing some arcane lookup variant for mount configuration. But I'm
happy to be convinced of its usefulness...