[PATCH v9 5/5] docs: proc: add documentation about mount restrictions

Alexey Gladkov <[email protected]> Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:19:44 +0200
Newsgroups dev.linux.lists.containers,org.kernel.vger.linux-fsdevel,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel
Message-ID <8d9734a83d9b85130485d76c3562064f836b7361.1776079055.git.legion@kernel.org>
procfs has a number of mounting restrictions that are not documented
anywhere.

Signed-off-by: Alexey Gladkov <[email protected]>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst | 15 +++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst
index b0c0d1b45b99..699cc372e6c8 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst
@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ fixes/update part 1.1  Stefani Seibold <[email protected]>    June 9 2009
 
   4	Configuring procfs
   4.1	Mount options
+  4.2	Mount restrictions
 
   5	Filesystem behavior
 
@@ -2410,6 +2411,20 @@ will use the calling process's active pid namespace. Note that the pid
 namespace of an existing procfs instance cannot be modified (attempting to do
 so will give an `-EBUSY` error).
 
+4.2	Mount restrictions
+--------------------------
+
+If user namespaces are in use, the kernel additionally checks the instances of
+procfs available to the mounter and will not allow procfs to be mounted if:
+
+  1. This mount is not fully visible unless the new procfs is going to be
+     mounted with subset=pid option.
+
+     a. It's root directory is not the root directory of the filesystem.
+     b. If any file or non-empty procfs directory is hidden by another mount.
+
+  2. A new mount overrides the readonly option or any option from atime familty.
+
 Chapter 5: Filesystem behavior
 ==============================
 
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