On Mon, May 09, 2022 at 02:48:15PM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:

One comment about this. We really need to have this interface support
giving us mount options like "relatime" back in numeric form (I assume
this will be possible.). It is royally annoying having to maintain a
mapping table in userspace just to do:

relatime -> MS_RELATIME/MOUNT_ATTR_RELATIME
ro	 -> MS_RDONLY/MOUNT_ATTR_RDONLY

A library shouldn't be required to use this interface. Conservative
low-level software that keeps its shared library dependencies minimal
will need to be able to use that interface without having to go to an
external library that transforms text-based output to binary form (Which
I'm very sure will need to happen if we go with a text-based
interface.).

Sounds like David's fsinfo() :-)

We need an interface where the kernel returns a consistent mount table    
entry (more syscalls to get more key=value could be a way how to get
inconsistent data).                                              

IMHO all the attempts to make a trivial interface will be unsuccessful
because the mount table is complex (tree) and mixes strings, paths,
and flags. We will always end with a complex interface or complex
strings (like the last xatts attempt). There is no 3rd path to go ...

The best would be simplified fsinfo() where userspace defines
a request (wanted "keys"), and the kernel fills a buffer with data
separated by some header metadata struct. In this case, the kernel can
return strings and structs with binary data.  


I'd love something like:

ssize_t sz;
fsinfo_query query[] = {
    { .request = FSINFO_MOUNT_PATH },
    { .request = FSINFO_PROPAGATION },
    { .request = FSINFO_CHILDREN_IDS },
};

sz = fsinfo(dfd, "", AT_EMPTY_PATH,
                &query, ARRAY_SIZE(query),
                buf, sizeof(buf));

for (p = buf; p < buf + sz; ) {
{
    fsinfo_entry *e = (struct fsinfo_entry) p;
    char *data = p + sizeof(struct fsinfo_entry);

    switch(e->request) {
    case FSINFO_MOUNT_PATH:
        printf("mountpoint %s\n", data);
        break;
    case FSINFO_PROPAGATION:
        printf("propagation %x\n", (uintptr_t) data);
        break;
    case FSINFO_CHILDREN_IDS:
        fsinfo_child *x = (fsinfo_child *) data;
        for (i = 0; i < e->count; i++) {
            printf("child: %d\n", x[i].mnt_id);
        }
        break;
    ...
    }

    p += sizeof(struct fsinfo_entry) + e->len;
}



... my two cents :-)

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  [off-list ref]
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com