Re: [PATCH v2] overlayfs.rst: remove mention of workdir needing to be empty

On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 8:23=E2=80=AFAM Jesse Van Gavere via B4 Relay
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> From: Jesse Van Gavere <[email protected]>
>
> This requirement has not been true since v4.8 when automatic cleanup was
> added in commit eea2fb4851e9 ("ovl: proper cleanup of workdir")
>
> Signed-off-by: Jesse Van Gavere <[email protected]>

Reviewed-by: Amir Goldstein <[email protected]>

Jon,

Can you please pick this one?

Thanks,
Amir.

> ---
> Changes in v2:
> - Handle remark from Amir Goldstein to drop workdir cleanup reference
> - Link to v1: https://patch.msgid.link/20260715-overlayfs-rst-update-v1-1=
[email protected]
>
> To: Miklos Szeredi <[email protected]>
> To: Amir Goldstein <[email protected]>
> To: Jonathan Corbet <[email protected]>
> To: Shuah Khan <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected]
> Cc: [email protected]
> Cc: [email protected]
> ---
>  Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst | 3 +--
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/file=
systems/overlayfs.rst
> index eb846518e6ac..ba41c0694e62 100644
> --- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
> @@ -123,8 +123,7 @@ At mount time, the two directories given as mount opt=
ions "lowerdir" and
>    mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=3D/lower,upperdir=3D/upper,\
>    workdir=3D/work /merged
>
> -The "workdir" needs to be an empty directory on the same filesystem
> -as upperdir.
> +The "workdir" needs to be a directory on the same filesystem as upperdir=
.
>
>  Then whenever a lookup is requested in such a merged directory, the
>  lookup is performed in each actual directory and the combined result
>
> ---
> base-commit: 58717b2a1365d06c8c64b72aa948541b53fe31eb
> change-id: 20260715-overlayfs-rst-update-750d58792f79
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Jesse Van Gavere <[email protected]>
>
>