From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: linux-nfs-owner@vger.kernel.org Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:1025 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1758066Ab2CFBe6 (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Mar 2012 20:34:58 -0500 Message-ID: <4F5569C5.1000100@RedHat.com> Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:35:01 -0500 From: Steve Dickson MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Myklebust, Trond" CC: Linux NFS Mailing list Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] umount.nfs: normalize path names during umounts. References: <1330976165-19849-1-git-send-email-steved@redhat.com> <1330976165-19849-2-git-send-email-steved@redhat.com> <20120305212015.GA21904@us.ibm.com> <4F5559EA.7010206@RedHat.com> <1330993903.5407.3.camel@lade.trondhjem.org> <4F556007.2030603@RedHat.com> <1330995896.5407.8.camel@lade.trondhjem.org> In-Reply-To: <1330995896.5407.8.camel@lade.trondhjem.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-nfs-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On 03/05/2012 08:04 PM, Myklebust, Trond wrote: >>> Is there any reason why we actually care about checking the crap >>> in /etc/mtab on umount? >>> >> Yeah... its called backwards compatibility with older distros... >> Believe, if I could bury mtab I would... in a New York minute! >> I just don't see it happening... > > Yes, but despite all your work, you are just replacing one broken model > by another. > > > At least with the current code, they can _see_ that the model is broken > and have an immediate incentive to move to the > mtab-is-a-symlink-to-/proc/mounts based model. The latter is in any case > the only one that is valid in the mount-namespace based world in which > we've been living for the past 5 years or so... > I do not disagree with what you are saying... The fact the code/model is broken is unarguably true... Relying on info in the mtab verses /proc/mounts is completely brain dead... But those bits are on the street and need to be fixed... So the question is how to fix them... Sending out a patch that symbolically links mtab to /proc/mounts would solve this entire problem! But I just can't make major change like that in established worlds... Who know what people use mtab for... I certainly don't. Changing mtab to read-only is recipe for disaster... IMHO... Now if we don't want to take a patch like this in upstream that's a different story... This patch is basically meaningless when it comes to new Linux distros... I'm ok with that.. But I do think its wise for us to at least try to be somewhat backwards compatible.... steved.