Re: [PATCH 5/8] host/rootfs: create a per-VM user namespace

Demi Marie Obenour
2025-12-12T17:51:30Z

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On 12/11/25 07:41, Alyssa Ross wrote:
> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 12/10/25 07:47, Alyssa Ross wrote:
>>> The document portal has to be root to mount its fuse filesystem. This
>>> needs to be a shared namespace because virtiofsd needs to be in the
>>> same mount namespace as the document portal so that it sees the fuse
>>> filesystem, so we create a per-VM persistent user namespace.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is>
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>>> diff --git a/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-appimage b/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-appimage
>>> index 47cab4c5..5e8e29fa 100755
>>> --- a/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-appimage
>>> +++ b/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-appimage
>>> @@ -44,4 +44,6 @@ if { s6-instance-delete /run/service/vm-services $id }
>>>
>>> if { umount ${dir}/mount } # mount namespace
>>> if { umount ${dir}/mount } # private bind mount
>>> +if { umount ${dir}/user } # user namespace
>>> +if { umount ${dir}/user } # private bind mount
>>> rm -r $dir /run/configs/${id}
>>> diff --git a/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-flatpak b/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-flatpak
>>> index bb366735..86ccc12a 100755
>>> --- a/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-flatpak
>>> +++ b/host/rootfs/image/usr/bin/run-flatpak
>>> @@ -46,4 +46,6 @@ if { s6-instance-delete -- /run/service/vm-services $id }
>>>
>>> if { umount ${dir}/mount } # mount namespace
>>> if { umount ${dir}/mount } # private bind mount
>>> +if { umount ${dir}/user } # user namespace
>>> +if { umount ${dir}/user } # private bind mount
>>> rm -r $dir /run/configs/${id}
>>
>> Why is it necessary to unmount twice here?
>
> Because we mount twice, just like the comments say. It is a bit
> counterintuitive though. Namespaces can only be mounted onto a
> mountpoint that itself has private propagation. This is why we create a
> private bind mount at the start of create-vm-dependencies before unshare
> bind mounts the namespaces. You can also see this in an example in
> unshare(1).
>
> Perhaps it would be better and clearer to have /run/vm/by-id/${VM}/ns as
> a private mountpoint, with the nsfs files inside? That way, each of
> them only needs to be unmounted once, and then the ns directory also has
> to be unmounted once.

I think it would be easier to understand.
--
Sincerely,
Demi Marie Obenour (she/her/hers)

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