Re: [PATCH] ramfs: ignore tmpfs options when we emulate it

Matt Mackall
2009-06-14T16:01:20Z

On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 11:39 +0100, Hugh Dickins wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Jun 2009, Wu Fengguang wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 10:15:51PM +0800, Hugh Dickins wrote:
> > > On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > >
> > > > On systems where CONFIG_SHMEM is disabled, mounting tmpfs filesystems can
> > > > fail when tmpfs options are used. This is because tmpfs creates a small
> > > > wrapper around ramfs which rejects unknown options, and ramfs itself only
> > > > supports a tiny subset of what tmpfs supports. This makes it pretty hard
> > > > to use the same userspace systems across different configuration systems.
> > > > As such, ramfs should ignore the tmpfs options when tmpfs is merely a
> > > > wrapper around ramfs.
> > >
> > > Yes, indeed, thanks a lot for reporting this.
> > >
> > > But I'm uneasy with making ramfs behaviour differ with CONFIG_SHMEM
> > > (perhaps that's silly: certainly tmpfs behaviour differs with it),
> > > and uneasy with coding a list of options we need to remember to keep
> > > in synch with mm/shmem.c. It's easier to justify ignoring all options,
> > > than rejecting some while ignoring others yet not respecting them.
> >
> > We can avoid the burden of syncing a list of options between
> > ramfs<>tmpfs by a slightly differently patch. Hopefully this makes
> > ramfs behave like other filesystems when used standalone.
>
> We could do; but I'm still preferring not. How about you, Matt?
> You decide, I think Andrew has chosen a different race track from
> "The Merge Window" this weekend.

I prefer the 'silently ignore' approach.

The only other approach that I think is reasonably clean is to
'subclass' ramfs by wrapping its init function with one that discards
mount args. Unfortunately that adds code and data in the 'I don't give a
damn, just keep it tiny' case, so that's a non-starter.

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