[PATCH 07/10] docs: document idmapped overlay mounts

Christian Brauner <[email protected]> Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:19:56 +0200
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.linux-unionfs,org.kernel.vger.linux-fsdevel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Describe that the merged overlay mount itself can be turned into an
idmapped mount with mount_setattr(2), how the overlay mount idmapping
composes with any layer idmappings, and that the mounter's access to
the underlying layers is unaffected.

Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner (Amutable) <[email protected]>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
index eb846518e6ac..1a29a5afabd7 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
@@ -347,6 +347,22 @@ The resulting access permissions should be the same.  The difference is in
 the time of copy (on-demand vs. up-front).
 
 
+Idmapped mounts
+---------------
+
+The overlay mount itself can be turned into an idmapped mount by applying an
+idmapping to it with mount_setattr(2) and MOUNT_ATTR_IDMAP, just like for
+other filesystems that support idmapped mounts.
+
+The mount idmapping only changes how ownership and permissions of the overlay
+inodes are presented to and interpreted for the caller.  It does not change
+how overlayfs accesses the underlying layers: those are still accessed with
+the stashed mounter's credentials through their own mounts, which may
+themselves be idmapped.  The overlay mount idmapping and any layer idmapping
+compose, an underlying id is first mapped according to the relevant layer
+idmapping and then according to the overlay mount idmapping.
+
+
 Multiple lower layers
 ---------------------
 

-- 
2.47.3