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1
2Miscellaneous Device control operations for the autofs4 kernel module
3====================================================================
4
5The problem
6===========
7
8There is a problem with active restarts in autofs (that is to say
9restarting autofs when there are busy mounts).
10
11During normal operation autofs uses a file descriptor opened on the
12directory that is being managed in order to be able to issue control
13operations. Using a file descriptor gives ioctl operations access to
14autofs specific information stored in the super block. The operations
15are things such as setting an autofs mount catatonic, setting the
16expire timeout and requesting expire checks. As is explained below,
17certain types of autofs triggered mounts can end up covering an autofs
18mount itself which prevents us being able to use open(2) to obtain a
19file descriptor for these operations if we don't already have one open.
20
21Currently autofs uses "umount -l" (lazy umount) to clear active mounts
22at restart. While using lazy umount works for most cases, anything that
23needs to walk back up the mount tree to construct a path, such as
24getcwd(2) and the proc file system /proc/<pid>/cwd, no longer works
25because the point from which the path is constructed has been detached
26from the mount tree.
27
28The actual problem with autofs is that it can't reconnect to existing
29mounts. Immediately one thinks of just adding the ability to remount
30autofs file systems would solve it, but alas, that can't work. This is
31because autofs direct mounts and the implementation of "on demand mount
32and expire" of nested mount trees have the file system mounted directly
33on top of the mount trigger directory dentry.
34
35For example, there are two types of automount maps, direct (in the kernel
36module source you will see a third type called an offset, which is just
37a direct mount in disguise) and indirect.
38
39Here is a master map with direct and indirect map entries:
40
41/- /etc/auto.direct
42/test /etc/auto.indirect
43
44and the corresponding map files:
45
46/etc/auto.direct:
47
48/automount/dparse/g6 budgie:/autofs/export1
49/automount/dparse/g1 shark:/autofs/export1
50and so on.
51
52/etc/auto.indirect:
53
54g1 shark:/autofs/export1
55g6 budgie:/autofs/export1
56and so on.
57
58For the above indirect map an autofs file system is mounted on /test and
59mounts are triggered for each sub-directory key by the inode lookup
60operation. So we see a mount of shark:/autofs/export1 on /test/g1, for
61example.
62
63The way that direct mounts are handled is by making an autofs mount on
64each full path, such as /automount/dparse/g1, and using it as a mount
65trigger. So when we walk on the path we mount shark:/autofs/export1 "on
66top of this mount point". Since these are always directories we can
67use the follow_link inode operation to trigger the mount.
68
69But, each entry in direct and indirect maps can have offsets (making
70them multi-mount map entries).
71
72For example, an indirect mount map entry could also be:
73
74g1 \
75 / shark:/autofs/export5/testing/test \
76 /s1 shark:/autofs/export/testing/test/s1 \
77 /s2 shark:/autofs/export5/testing/test/s2 \
78 /s1/ss1 shark:/autofs/export1 \
79 /s2/ss2 shark:/autofs/export2
80
81and a similarly a direct mount map entry could also be:
82
83/automount/dparse/g1 \
84 / shark:/autofs/export5/testing/test \
85 /s1 shark:/autofs/export/testing/test/s1 \
86 /s2 shark:/autofs/export5/testing/test/s2 \
87 /s1/ss1 shark:/autofs/export2 \
88 /s2/ss2 shark:/autofs/export2
89
90One of the issues with version 4 of autofs was that, when mounting an
91entry with a large number of offsets, possibly with nesting, we needed
92to mount and umount all of the offsets as a single unit. Not really a
93problem, except for people with a large number of offsets in map entries.
94This mechanism is used for the well known "hosts" map and we have seen
95cases (in 2.4) where the available number of mounts are exhausted or
96where the number of privileged ports available is exhausted.
97
98In version 5 we mount only as we go down the tree of offsets and
99similarly for expiring them which resolves the above problem. There is
100somewhat more detail to the implementation but it isn't needed for the
101sake of the problem explanation. The one important detail is that these
102offsets are implemented using the same mechanism as the direct mounts
103above and so the mount points can be covered by a mount.
104
105The current autofs implementation uses an ioctl file descriptor opened
106on the mount point for control operations. The references held by the
107descriptor are accounted for in checks made to determine if a mount is
108in use and is also used to access autofs file system information held
109in the mount super block. So the use of a file handle needs to be
110retained.
111
112
113The Solution
114============
115
116To be able to restart autofs leaving existing direct, indirect and
117offset mounts in place we need to be able to obtain a file handle
118for these potentially covered autofs mount points. Rather than just
119implement an isolated operation it was decided to re-implement the
120existing ioctl interface and add new operations to provide this
121functionality.
122
123In addition, to be able to reconstruct a mount tree that has busy mounts,
124the uid and gid of the last user that triggered the mount needs to be
125available because these can be used as macro substitution variables in
126autofs maps. They are recorded at mount request time and an operation
127has been added to retrieve them.
128
129Since we're re-implementing the control interface, a couple of other
130problems with the existing interface have been addressed. First, when
131a mount or expire operation completes a status is returned to the
132kernel by either a "send ready" or a "send fail" operation. The
133"send fail" operation of the ioctl interface could only ever send
134ENOENT so the re-implementation allows user space to send an actual
135status. Another expensive operation in user space, for those using
136very large maps, is discovering if a mount is present. Usually this
137involves scanning /proc/mounts and since it needs to be done quite
138often it can introduce significant overhead when there are many entries
139in the mount table. An operation to lookup the mount status of a mount
140point dentry (covered or not) has also been added.
141
142Current kernel development policy recommends avoiding the use of the
143ioctl mechanism in favor of systems such as Netlink. An implementation
144using this system was attempted to evaluate its suitability and it was
145found to be inadequate, in this case. The Generic Netlink system was
146used for this as raw Netlink would lead to a significant increase in
147complexity. There's no question that the Generic Netlink system is an
148elegant solution for common case ioctl functions but it's not a complete
149replacement probably because it's primary purpose in life is to be a
150message bus implementation rather than specifically an ioctl replacement.
151While it would be possible to work around this there is one concern
152that lead to the decision to not use it. This is that the autofs
153expire in the daemon has become far to complex because umount
154candidates are enumerated, almost for no other reason than to "count"
155the number of times to call the expire ioctl. This involves scanning
156the mount table which has proved to be a big overhead for users with
157large maps. The best way to improve this is try and get back to the
158way the expire was done long ago. That is, when an expire request is
159issued for a mount (file handle) we should continually call back to
160the daemon until we can't umount any more mounts, then return the
161appropriate status to the daemon. At the moment we just expire one
162mount at a time. A Generic Netlink implementation would exclude this
163possibility for future development due to the requirements of the
164message bus architecture.
165
166
167autofs4 Miscellaneous Device mount control interface
168====================================================
169
170The control interface is opening a device node, typically /dev/autofs.
171
172All the ioctls use a common structure to pass the needed parameter
173information and return operation results:
174
175struct autofs_dev_ioctl {
176 __u32 ver_major;
177 __u32 ver_minor;
178 __u32 size; /* total size of data passed in
179 * including this struct */
180 __s32 ioctlfd; /* automount command fd */
181
182 __u32 arg1; /* Command parameters */
183 __u32 arg2;
184
185 char path[0];
186};
187
188The ioctlfd field is a mount point file descriptor of an autofs mount
189point. It is returned by the open call and is used by all calls except
190the check for whether a given path is a mount point, where it may
191optionally be used to check a specific mount corresponding to a given
192mount point file descriptor, and when requesting the uid and gid of the
193last successful mount on a directory within the autofs file system.
194
195The fields arg1 and arg2 are used to communicate parameters and results of
196calls made as described below.
197
198The path field is used to pass a path where it is needed and the size field
199is used account for the increased structure length when translating the
200structure sent from user space.
201
202This structure can be initialized before setting specific fields by using
203the void function call init_autofs_dev_ioctl(struct autofs_dev_ioctl *).
204
205All of the ioctls perform a copy of this structure from user space to
206kernel space and return -EINVAL if the size parameter is smaller than
207the structure size itself, -ENOMEM if the kernel memory allocation fails
208or -EFAULT if the copy itself fails. Other checks include a version check
209of the compiled in user space version against the module version and a
210mismatch results in a -EINVAL return. If the size field is greater than
211the structure size then a path is assumed to be present and is checked to
212ensure it begins with a "/" and is NULL terminated, otherwise -EINVAL is
213returned. Following these checks, for all ioctl commands except
214AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_VERSION_CMD, AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_OPENMOUNT_CMD and
215AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_CLOSEMOUNT_CMD the ioctlfd is validated and if it is
216not a valid descriptor or doesn't correspond to an autofs mount point
217an error of -EBADF, -ENOTTY or -EINVAL (not an autofs descriptor) is
218returned.
219
220
221The ioctls
222==========
223
224An example of an implementation which uses this interface can be seen
225in autofs version 5.0.4 and later in file lib/dev-ioctl-lib.c of the
226distribution tar available for download from kernel.org in directory
227/pub/linux/daemons/autofs/v5.
228
229The device node ioctl operations implemented by this interface are:
230
231
232AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_VERSION
233------------------------
234
235Get the major and minor version of the autofs4 device ioctl kernel module
236implementation. It requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl as an
237input parameter and sets the version information in the passed in structure.
238It returns 0 on success or the error -EINVAL if a version mismatch is
239detected.
240
241
242AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_PROTOVER_CMD and AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_PROTOSUBVER_CMD
243------------------------------------------------------------------
244
245Get the major and minor version of the autofs4 protocol version understood
246by loaded module. This call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl
247with the ioctlfd field set to a valid autofs mount point descriptor
248and sets the requested version number in structure field arg1. These
249commands return 0 on success or one of the negative error codes if
250validation fails.
251
252
253AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_OPENMOUNT and AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_CLOSEMOUNT
254----------------------------------------------------------
255
256Obtain and release a file descriptor for an autofs managed mount point
257path. The open call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with
258the the path field set and the size field adjusted appropriately as well
259as the arg1 field set to the device number of the autofs mount. The
260device number can be obtained from the mount options shown in
261/proc/mounts. The close call requires an initialized struct
262autofs_dev_ioct with the ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained
263from the open call. The release of the file descriptor can also be done
264with close(2) so any open descriptors will also be closed at process exit.
265The close call is included in the implemented operations largely for
266completeness and to provide for a consistent user space implementation.
267
268
269AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_READY_CMD and AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_FAIL_CMD
270--------------------------------------------------------
271
272Return mount and expire result status from user space to the kernel.
273Both of these calls require an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl
274with the ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained from the open
275call and the arg1 field set to the wait queue token number, received
276by user space in the foregoing mount or expire request. The arg2 field
277is set to the status to be returned. For the ready call this is always
2780 and for the fail call it is set to the errno of the operation.
279
280
281AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_SETPIPEFD_CMD
282------------------------------
283
284Set the pipe file descriptor used for kernel communication to the daemon.
285Normally this is set at mount time using an option but when reconnecting
286to a existing mount we need to use this to tell the autofs mount about
287the new kernel pipe descriptor. In order to protect mounts against
288incorrectly setting the pipe descriptor we also require that the autofs
289mount be catatonic (see next call).
290
291The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with the
292ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained from the open call and
293the arg1 field set to descriptor of the pipe. On success the call
294also sets the process group id used to identify the controlling process
295(eg. the owning automount(8) daemon) to the process group of the caller.
296
297
298AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_CATATONIC_CMD
299------------------------------
300
301Make the autofs mount point catatonic. The autofs mount will no longer
302issue mount requests, the kernel communication pipe descriptor is released
303and any remaining waits in the queue released.
304
305The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with the
306ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained from the open call.
307
308
309AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_TIMEOUT_CMD
310----------------------------
311
312Set the expire timeout for mounts withing an autofs mount point.
313
314The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with the
315ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained from the open call.
316
317
318AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_REQUESTER_CMD
319------------------------------
320
321Return the uid and gid of the last process to successfully trigger a the
322mount on the given path dentry.
323
324The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with the path
325field set to the mount point in question and the size field adjusted
326appropriately as well as the arg1 field set to the device number of the
327containing autofs mount. Upon return the struct field arg1 contains the
328uid and arg2 the gid.
329
330When reconstructing an autofs mount tree with active mounts we need to
331re-connect to mounts that may have used the original process uid and
332gid (or string variations of them) for mount lookups within the map entry.
333This call provides the ability to obtain this uid and gid so they may be
334used by user space for the mount map lookups.
335
336
337AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_EXPIRE_CMD
338---------------------------
339
340Issue an expire request to the kernel for an autofs mount. Typically
341this ioctl is called until no further expire candidates are found.
342
343The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with the
344ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained from the open call. In
345addition an immediate expire, independent of the mount timeout, can be
346requested by setting the arg1 field to 1. If no expire candidates can
347be found the ioctl returns -1 with errno set to EAGAIN.
348
349This call causes the kernel module to check the mount corresponding
350to the given ioctlfd for mounts that can be expired, issues an expire
351request back to the daemon and waits for completion.
352
353AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_ASKUMOUNT_CMD
354------------------------------
355
356Checks if an autofs mount point is in use.
357
358The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl with the
359ioctlfd field set to the descriptor obtained from the open call and
360it returns the result in the arg1 field, 1 for busy and 0 otherwise.
361
362
363AUTOFS_DEV_IOCTL_ISMOUNTPOINT_CMD
364---------------------------------
365
366Check if the given path is a mountpoint.
367
368The call requires an initialized struct autofs_dev_ioctl. There are two
369possible variations. Both use the path field set to the path of the mount
370point to check and the size field adjusted appropriately. One uses the
371ioctlfd field to identify a specific mount point to check while the other
372variation uses the path and optionaly arg1 set to an autofs mount type.
373The call returns 1 if this is a mount point and sets arg1 to the device
374number of the mount and field arg2 to the relevant super block magic
375number (described below) or 0 if it isn't a mountpoint. In both cases
376the the device number (as returned by new_encode_dev()) is returned
377in field arg1.
378
379If supplied with a file descriptor we're looking for a specific mount,
380not necessarily at the top of the mounted stack. In this case the path
381the descriptor corresponds to is considered a mountpoint if it is itself
382a mountpoint or contains a mount, such as a multi-mount without a root
383mount. In this case we return 1 if the descriptor corresponds to a mount
384point and and also returns the super magic of the covering mount if there
385is one or 0 if it isn't a mountpoint.
386
387If a path is supplied (and the ioctlfd field is set to -1) then the path
388is looked up and is checked to see if it is the root of a mount. If a
389type is also given we are looking for a particular autofs mount and if
390a match isn't found a fail is returned. If the the located path is the
391root of a mount 1 is returned along with the super magic of the mount
392or 0 otherwise.
393