Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 15 Dec 1999 21:31:16 +0100 | From | Guest section DW <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Minor sys_umount fix (changes semantics slightly) |
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On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 05:41:03PM +0000, Malcolm Beattie wrote:
> > > Here's a one-letter patch for 2.3.x to sys_umount to allow it to > > > unmount filesystems whose root inode is a symlink.
Yes, so again. Everyone agrees, I think, that mount should follow symlinks. Moreover, one expects a certain parallelism between the behaviour of mount and umount. So umount should follow symlinks until it comes to the mount point. Your problem is that the mount point used to be an ordinary directory but now is overmounted by a filesystem that has a symlink at the root.
Now the old tradition is to say `umount(specialdev)', so perhaps you can do the umount without kernel patch by mentioning the device instead of the mount point? It is a Linux extension to allow `umount(mountdir)'.
Not much is wrong with your 1-symbol patch, and at first sight I cannot find any standards that both mention mount and know about symlinks. Still, the patch is probably a small step away from tradition, so it should probably be avoided if possible.
Andries
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