[RFC PATCH 1/3] add unique mount ID

[Miklos Szeredi]

On Thu, 14 Sept 2023 at 11:04, Christian Brauner <brauner at kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 05:22:34PM +0200, Miklos Szeredi wrote:
> > If a mount is released then it's mnt_id can immediately be reused.  This is
> > bad news for user interfaces that want to uniquely identify a mount.
> >
> > Implementing a unique mount ID is trivial (use a 64bit counter).
> > Unfortunately userspace assumes 32bit size and would overflow after the
> > counter reaches 2^32.
> >
> > Introduce a new 64bit ID alongside the old one.  Allow new interfaces to
> > work on both the old and new IDs by starting the counter from 2^32.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi <mszeredi at redhat.com>
> > ---
> >  fs/mount.h                | 3 ++-
> >  fs/namespace.c            | 4 ++++
> >  fs/stat.c                 | 9 +++++++--
> >  include/uapi/linux/stat.h | 1 +
> >  4 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/fs/mount.h b/fs/mount.h
> > index 130c07c2f8d2..a14f762b3f29 100644
> > --- a/fs/mount.h
> > +++ b/fs/mount.h
> > @@ -72,7 +72,8 @@ struct mount {
> >       struct fsnotify_mark_connector __rcu *mnt_fsnotify_marks;
> >       __u32 mnt_fsnotify_mask;
> >  #endif
> > -     int mnt_id;                     /* mount identifier */
> > +     int mnt_id;                     /* mount identifier, reused */
> > +     u64 mnt_id_unique;              /* mount ID unique until reboot */
> >       int mnt_group_id;               /* peer group identifier */
> >       int mnt_expiry_mark;            /* true if marked for expiry */
> >       struct hlist_head mnt_pins;
> > diff --git a/fs/namespace.c b/fs/namespace.c
> > index e157efc54023..de47c5f66e17 100644
> > --- a/fs/namespace.c
> > +++ b/fs/namespace.c
> > @@ -68,6 +68,9 @@ static u64 event;
> >  static DEFINE_IDA(mnt_id_ida);
> >  static DEFINE_IDA(mnt_group_ida);
> >
> > +/* Don't allow confusion with mount ID allocated wit IDA */
> > +static atomic64_t mnt_id_ctr = ATOMIC64_INIT(1ULL << 32);
>
> Hm, is your concern that userspace confuses these two values? If so, I
> think we shouldn't worry about this.

Yes, one concern is that humans confuse the old and the new ID.

I also think it makes sense to allow the new interfaces to look up the
mount based on either the old or the new ID.   But I could be wrong
there, since that might encourage bad code.  Maybe the new interface
should only use take the new ID, which means no mixed use of
/proc/$$/mountinfo and statmnt/listmnt.

>
> If a userspace program retrieves a mntid and then confuses itself about
> what mnt id they're talking about something's very wrong anyway. So I'd
> rather not see us waste 32 bits just for that.

This is wasting a quarter of a billionth of the ID space.  We are
surely not concerned about that.

Thanks,
Miklos