Re: Incorrect Overlayfs documentation

[nerdopolis <bluescreen_avenger@verizon.net>]

On Thursday, July 16, 2020 1:03:52 PM EDT Amir Goldstein wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 6:09 AM nerdopolis
> <bluescreen_avenger@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > A while back I opened up https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195113 describing a documentation problem in
> > https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt but for whatever reason, it hasn't been seen.
> >
> >
> > The problem is that it says "The lower filesystem can be any filesystem supported by Linux"
> > however, this is not the case, as Linux supports vfat, and vfat doesn't work as a lower filesystem
> >
> > So there's no way to tell what filesystems are applicable for an overlay lowerfs,
> > and I don't think any existing userspace utilities can detect it.
> >
> > Could it be possible for the .txt file to be updated?
> >
> 
> The way it works usually in this project is you can submit a patch to fix the
> problem:
> https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-patches.html
> 
> But if you don't want to go through that process, you can offer a text to
> fix documentation.
> 
> But I myself cannot offer anything better than:
> "The lower filesystem can be one of many filesystem supported by Linux".
> 
> I don't think that we want to start listing the supported filesystems in
> documentation.
> 
> FWIW the description of upper fs isn't uptodate either.
> 
> Thanks,
> Amir.
> 
> 
Hi.

Yeah, that process might be cumbersome. I guess what you have is good.
Maybe "A wide range of filesystems supported by Linux can be the lower
filesystem, however, not all filesystems that are mountable by Linux have the
features needed for OverlayFS to work"
?

Thanks