[PATCH RFC v3 02/26] fs: notice when init abandons fs sharing

Christian Brauner
2026-03-11T21:56:17Z

PID 1 may choose to stop sharing fs_struct state with us. Either via
unshare(CLONE_FS) or unshare(CLONE_NEWNS). Of course, PID 1 could have
chosen to create arbitrary process trees that all share fs_struct state
via CLONE_FS. This is a strong statement: We only care about PID 1 aka
the thread-group leader so subthread's fs_struct state doesn't matter.

PID 1 unsharing fs_struct state is a bug. PID 1 relies on various
kthreads to be able to perform work based on its fs_struct state.
Breaking that contract sucks for both sides. So just don't bother with
extra work for this. No sane init system should ever do this.

Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>
---
fs/fs_struct.c | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 25 insertions(+)

diff --git a/fs/fs_struct.c b/fs/fs_struct.c
index c441586537e7..fcecf209f1a9 100644
--- a/fs/fs_struct.c
+++ b/fs/fs_struct.c
@@ -147,6 +147,30 @@ int unshare_fs_struct(void)
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(unshare_fs_struct);

+/*
+ * PID 1 may choose to stop sharing fs_struct state with us.
+ * Either via unshare(CLONE_FS) or unshare(CLONE_NEWNS). Of
+ * course, PID 1 could have chosen to create arbitrary process
+ * trees that all share fs_struct state via CLONE_FS. This is a
+ * strong statement: We only care about PID 1 aka the thread-group
+ * leader so subthread's fs_struct state doesn't matter.
+ *
+ * PID 1 unsharing fs_struct state is a bug. PID 1 relies on
+ * various kthreads to be able to perform work based on its
+ * fs_struct state. Breaking that contract sucks for both sides.
+ * So just don't bother with extra work for this. No sane init
+ * system should ever do this.
+ */
+static inline void validate_fs_switch(struct fs_struct *old_fs)
+{
+ if (likely(current->pid != 1))
+ return;
+ /* @old_fs may be dangling but for comparison it's fine */
+ if (old_fs != &init_fs)
+ return;
+ pr_warn("VFS: Pid 1 stopped sharing filesystem state\n");
+}
+
struct fs_struct *switch_fs_struct(struct fs_struct *new_fs)
{
struct fs_struct *fs;
@@ -162,6 +186,7 @@ struct fs_struct *switch_fs_struct(struct fs_struct *new_fs)
read_sequnlock_excl(&fs->seq);
}

+ validate_fs_switch(fs);
return new_fs;
}

--
2.47.3