Merge tag 'ovl-update-5.10' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mszeredi/vfs

Pull overlayfs updates from Miklos Szeredi:

 - Improve performance for certain container setups by introducing a
   "volatile" mode

 - ioctl improvements

 - continue preparation for unprivileged overlay mounts

* tag 'ovl-update-5.10' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mszeredi/vfs:
  ovl: use generic vfs_ioc_setflags_prepare() helper
  ovl: support [S|G]ETFLAGS and FS[S|G]ETXATTR ioctls for directories
  ovl: rearrange ovl_can_list()
  ovl: enumerate private xattrs
  ovl: pass ovl_fs down to functions accessing private xattrs
  ovl: drop flags argument from ovl_do_setxattr()
  ovl: adhere to the vfs_ vs. ovl_do_ conventions for xattrs
  ovl: use ovl_do_getxattr() for private xattr
  ovl: fold ovl_getxattr() into ovl_get_redirect_xattr()
  ovl: clean up ovl_getxattr() in copy_up.c
  duplicate ovl_getxattr()
  ovl: provide a mount option "volatile"
  ovl: check for incompatible features in work dir

1 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
index 8ea83a51c266..580ab9a0fe31 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
@@ -564,6 +564,25 @@ Note: the mount options index=off,nfs_export=on are conflicting for a
 read-write mount and will result in an error.
 
 
+Volatile mount
+--------------
+
+This is enabled with the "volatile" mount option.  Volatile mounts are not
+guaranteed to survive a crash.  It is strongly recommended that volatile
+mounts are only used if data written to the overlay can be recreated
+without significant effort.
+
+The advantage of mounting with the "volatile" option is that all forms of
+sync calls to the upper filesystem are omitted.
+
+When overlay is mounted with "volatile" option, the directory
+"$workdir/work/incompat/volatile" is created.  During next mount, overlay
+checks for this directory and refuses to mount if present. This is a strong
+indicator that user should throw away upper and work directories and create
+fresh one. In very limited cases where the user knows that the system has
+not crashed and contents of upperdir are intact, The "volatile" directory
+can be removed.
+
 Testsuite
 ---------