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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+Written by: Neil Brown
+Please see MAINTAINERS file for where to send questions.
+
+Overlay Filesystem
+==================
+
+This document describes a prototype for a new approach to providing
+overlay-filesystem functionality in Linux (sometimes referred to as
+union-filesystems).  An overlay-filesystem tries to present a
+filesystem which is the result over overlaying one filesystem on top
+of the other.
+
+
+Overlay objects
+---------------
+
+The overlay filesystem approach is 'hybrid', because the objects that
+appear in the filesystem do not always appear to belong to that filesystem.
+In many cases, an object accessed in the union will be indistinguishable
+from accessing the corresponding object from the original filesystem.
+This is most obvious from the 'st_dev' field returned by stat(2).
+
+While directories will report an st_dev from the overlay-filesystem,
+non-directory objects may report an st_dev from the lower filesystem or
+upper filesystem that is providing the object.  Similarly st_ino will
+only be unique when combined with st_dev, and both of these can change
+over the lifetime of a non-directory object.  Many applications and
+tools ignore these values and will not be affected.
+
+In the special case of all overlay layers on the same underlying
+filesystem, all objects will report an st_dev from the overlay
+filesystem and st_ino from the underlying filesystem.  This will
+make the overlay mount more compliant with filesystem scanners and
+overlay objects will be distinguishable from the corresponding
+objects in the original filesystem.
+
+On 64bit systems, even if all overlay layers are not on the same
+underlying filesystem, the same compliant behavior could be achieved
+with the "xino" feature.  The "xino" feature composes a unique object
+identifier from the real object st_ino and an underlying fsid index.
+
+If all underlying filesystems support NFS file handles and export file
+handles with 32bit inode number encoding (e.g. ext4), overlay filesystem
+will use the high inode number bits for fsid.  Even when the underlying
+filesystem uses 64bit inode numbers, users can still enable the "xino"
+feature with the "-o xino=on" overlay mount option.  That is useful for the
+case of underlying filesystems like xfs and tmpfs, which use 64bit inode
+numbers, but are very unlikely to use the high inode number bits.  In case
+the underlying inode number does overflow into the high xino bits, overlay
+filesystem will fall back to the non xino behavior for that inode.
+
+The following table summarizes what can be expected in different overlay
+configurations.
+
+Inode properties
+````````````````
+
++--------------+------------+------------+-----------------+----------------+
+|Configuration | Persistent | Uniform    | st_ino == d_ino | d_ino == i_ino |
+|              | st_ino     | st_dev     |                 | [*]            |
++==============+=====+======+=====+======+========+========+========+=======+
+|              | dir | !dir | dir | !dir |  dir   +  !dir  |  dir   | !dir  |
++--------------+-----+------+-----+------+--------+--------+--------+-------+
+| All layers   |  Y  |  Y   |  Y  |  Y   |  Y     |   Y    |  Y     |  Y    |
+| on same fs   |     |      |     |      |        |        |        |       |
++--------------+-----+------+-----+------+--------+--------+--------+-------+
+| Layers not   |  N  |  Y   |  Y  |  N   |  N     |   Y    |  N     |  Y    |
+| on same fs,  |     |      |     |      |        |        |        |       |
+| xino=off     |     |      |     |      |        |        |        |       |
++--------------+-----+------+-----+------+--------+--------+--------+-------+
+| xino=on/auto |  Y  |  Y   |  Y  |  Y   |  Y     |   Y    |  Y     |  Y    |
+|              |     |      |     |      |        |        |        |       |
++--------------+-----+------+-----+------+--------+--------+--------+-------+
+| xino=on/auto,|  N  |  Y   |  Y  |  N   |  N     |   Y    |  N     |  Y    |
+| ino overflow |     |      |     |      |        |        |        |       |
++--------------+-----+------+-----+------+--------+--------+--------+-------+
+
+[*] nfsd v3 readdirplus verifies d_ino == i_ino. i_ino is exposed via several
+/proc files, such as /proc/locks and /proc/self/fdinfo/<fd> of an inotify
+file descriptor.
+
+
+Upper and Lower
+---------------
+
+An overlay filesystem combines two filesystems - an 'upper' filesystem
+and a 'lower' filesystem.  When a name exists in both filesystems, the
+object in the 'upper' filesystem is visible while the object in the
+'lower' filesystem is either hidden or, in the case of directories,
+merged with the 'upper' object.
+
+It would be more correct to refer to an upper and lower 'directory
+tree' rather than 'filesystem' as it is quite possible for both
+directory trees to be in the same filesystem and there is no
+requirement that the root of a filesystem be given for either upper or
+lower.
+
+The lower filesystem can be any filesystem supported by Linux and does
+not need to be writable.  The lower filesystem can even be another
+overlayfs.  The upper filesystem will normally be writable and if it
+is it must support the creation of trusted.* extended attributes, and
+must provide valid d_type in readdir responses, so NFS is not suitable.
+
+A read-only overlay of two read-only filesystems may use any
+filesystem type.
+
+Directories
+-----------
+
+Overlaying mainly involves directories.  If a given name appears in both
+upper and lower filesystems and refers to a non-directory in either,
+then the lower object is hidden - the name refers only to the upper
+object.
+
+Where both upper and lower objects are directories, a merged directory
+is formed.
+
+At mount time, the two directories given as mount options "lowerdir" and
+"upperdir" are combined into a merged directory:
+
+  mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,\
+  workdir=/work /merged
+
+The "workdir" needs to be an empty 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
+is cached in the dentry belonging to the overlay filesystem.  If both
+actual lookups find directories, both are stored and a merged
+directory is created, otherwise only one is stored: the upper if it
+exists, else the lower.
+
+Only the lists of names from directories are merged.  Other content
+such as metadata and extended attributes are reported for the upper
+directory only.  These attributes of the lower directory are hidden.
+
+whiteouts and opaque directories
+--------------------------------
+
+In order to support rm and rmdir without changing the lower
+filesystem, an overlay filesystem needs to record in the upper filesystem
+that files have been removed.  This is done using whiteouts and opaque
+directories (non-directories are always opaque).
+
+A whiteout is created as a character device with 0/0 device number.
+When a whiteout is found in the upper level of a merged directory, any
+matching name in the lower level is ignored, and the whiteout itself
+is also hidden.
+
+A directory is made opaque by setting the xattr "trusted.overlay.opaque"
+to "y".  Where the upper filesystem contains an opaque directory, any
+directory in the lower filesystem with the same name is ignored.
+
+readdir
+-------
+
+When a 'readdir' request is made on a merged directory, the upper and
+lower directories are each read and the name lists merged in the
+obvious way (upper is read first, then lower - entries that already
+exist are not re-added).  This merged name list is cached in the
+'struct file' and so remains as long as the file is kept open.  If the
+directory is opened and read by two processes at the same time, they
+will each have separate caches.  A seekdir to the start of the
+directory (offset 0) followed by a readdir will cause the cache to be
+discarded and rebuilt.
+
+This means that changes to the merged directory do not appear while a
+directory is being read.  This is unlikely to be noticed by many
+programs.
+
+seek offsets are assigned sequentially when the directories are read.
+Thus if
+
+  - read part of a directory
+  - remember an offset, and close the directory
+  - re-open the directory some time later
+  - seek to the remembered offset
+
+there may be little correlation between the old and new locations in
+the list of filenames, particularly if anything has changed in the
+directory.
+
+Readdir on directories that are not merged is simply handled by the
+underlying directory (upper or lower).
+
+renaming directories
+--------------------
+
+When renaming a directory that is on the lower layer or merged (i.e. the
+directory was not created on the upper layer to start with) overlayfs can
+handle it in two different ways:
+
+1. return EXDEV error: this error is returned by rename(2) when trying to
+   move a file or directory across filesystem boundaries.  Hence
+   applications are usually prepared to hande this error (mv(1) for example
+   recursively copies the directory tree).  This is the default behavior.
+
+2. If the "redirect_dir" feature is enabled, then the directory will be
+   copied up (but not the contents).  Then the "trusted.overlay.redirect"
+   extended attribute is set to the path of the original location from the
+   root of the overlay.  Finally the directory is moved to the new
+   location.
+
+There are several ways to tune the "redirect_dir" feature.
+
+Kernel config options:
+
+- OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR:
+    If this is enabled, then redirect_dir is turned on by  default.
+- OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_ALWAYS_FOLLOW:
+    If this is enabled, then redirects are always followed by default. Enabling
+    this results in a less secure configuration.  Enable this option only when
+    worried about backward compatibility with kernels that have the redirect_dir
+    feature and follow redirects even if turned off.
+
+Module options (can also be changed through /sys/module/overlay/parameters/):
+
+- "redirect_dir=BOOL":
+    See OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR kernel config option above.
+- "redirect_always_follow=BOOL":
+    See OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_ALWAYS_FOLLOW kernel config option above.
+- "redirect_max=NUM":
+    The maximum number of bytes in an absolute redirect (default is 256).
+
+Mount options:
+
+- "redirect_dir=on":
+    Redirects are enabled.
+- "redirect_dir=follow":
+    Redirects are not created, but followed.
+- "redirect_dir=off":
+    Redirects are not created and only followed if "redirect_always_follow"
+    feature is enabled in the kernel/module config.
+- "redirect_dir=nofollow":
+    Redirects are not created and not followed (equivalent to "redirect_dir=off"
+    if "redirect_always_follow" feature is not enabled).
+
+When the NFS export feature is enabled, every copied up directory is
+indexed by the file handle of the lower inode and a file handle of the
+upper directory is stored in a "trusted.overlay.upper" extended attribute
+on the index entry.  On lookup of a merged directory, if the upper
+directory does not match the file handle stores in the index, that is an
+indication that multiple upper directories may be redirected to the same
+lower directory.  In that case, lookup returns an error and warns about
+a possible inconsistency.
+
+Because lower layer redirects cannot be verified with the index, enabling
+NFS export support on an overlay filesystem with no upper layer requires
+turning off redirect follow (e.g. "redirect_dir=nofollow").
+
+
+Non-directories
+---------------
+
+Objects that are not directories (files, symlinks, device-special
+files etc.) are presented either from the upper or lower filesystem as
+appropriate.  When a file in the lower filesystem is accessed in a way
+the requires write-access, such as opening for write access, changing
+some metadata etc., the file is first copied from the lower filesystem
+to the upper filesystem (copy_up).  Note that creating a hard-link
+also requires copy_up, though of course creation of a symlink does
+not.
+
+The copy_up may turn out to be unnecessary, for example if the file is
+opened for read-write but the data is not modified.
+
+The copy_up process first makes sure that the containing directory
+exists in the upper filesystem - creating it and any parents as
+necessary.  It then creates the object with the same metadata (owner,
+mode, mtime, symlink-target etc.) and then if the object is a file, the
+data is copied from the lower to the upper filesystem.  Finally any
+extended attributes are copied up.
+
+Once the copy_up is complete, the overlay filesystem simply
+provides direct access to the newly created file in the upper
+filesystem - future operations on the file are barely noticed by the
+overlay filesystem (though an operation on the name of the file such as
+rename or unlink will of course be noticed and handled).
+
+
+Permission model
+----------------
+
+Permission checking in the overlay filesystem follows these principles:
+
+ 1) permission check SHOULD return the same result before and after copy up
+
+ 2) task creating the overlay mount MUST NOT gain additional privileges
+
+ 3) non-mounting task MAY gain additional privileges through the overlay,
+ compared to direct access on underlying lower or upper filesystems
+
+This is achieved by performing two permission checks on each access
+
+ a) check if current task is allowed access based on local DAC (owner,
+    group, mode and posix acl), as well as MAC checks
+
+ b) check if mounting task would be allowed real operation on lower or
+    upper layer based on underlying filesystem permissions, again including
+    MAC checks
+
+Check (a) ensures consistency (1) since owner, group, mode and posix acls
+are copied up.  On the other hand it can result in server enforced
+permissions (used by NFS, for example) being ignored (3).
+
+Check (b) ensures that no task gains permissions to underlying layers that
+the mounting task does not have (2).  This also means that it is possible
+to create setups where the consistency rule (1) does not hold; normally,
+however, the mounting task will have sufficient privileges to perform all
+operations.
+
+Another way to demonstrate this model is drawing parallels between
+
+  mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,... /merged
+
+and
+
+  cp -a /lower /upper
+  mount --bind /upper /merged
+
+The resulting access permissions should be the same.  The difference is in
+the time of copy (on-demand vs. up-front).
+
+
+Multiple lower layers
+---------------------
+
+Multiple lower layers can now be given using the colon (":") as a
+separator character between the directory names.  For example:
+
+  mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower1:/lower2:/lower3 /merged
+
+As the example shows, "upperdir=" and "workdir=" may be omitted.  In
+that case the overlay will be read-only.
+
+The specified lower directories will be stacked beginning from the
+rightmost one and going left.  In the above example lower1 will be the
+top, lower2 the middle and lower3 the bottom layer.
+
+
+Metadata only copy up
+---------------------
+
+When metadata only copy up feature is enabled, overlayfs will only copy
+up metadata (as opposed to whole file), when a metadata specific operation
+like chown/chmod is performed. Full file will be copied up later when
+file is opened for WRITE operation.
+
+In other words, this is delayed data copy up operation and data is copied
+up when there is a need to actually modify data.
+
+There are multiple ways to enable/disable this feature. A config option
+CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_METACOPY can be set/unset to enable/disable this feature
+by default. Or one can enable/disable it at module load time with module
+parameter metacopy=on/off. Lastly, there is also a per mount option
+metacopy=on/off to enable/disable this feature per mount.
+
+Do not use metacopy=on with untrusted upper/lower directories. Otherwise
+it is possible that an attacker can create a handcrafted file with
+appropriate REDIRECT and METACOPY xattrs, and gain access to file on lower
+pointed by REDIRECT. This should not be possible on local system as setting
+"trusted." xattrs will require CAP_SYS_ADMIN. But it should be possible
+for untrusted layers like from a pen drive.
+
+Note: redirect_dir={off|nofollow|follow[*]} and nfs_export=on mount options
+conflict with metacopy=on, and will result in an error.
+
+[*] redirect_dir=follow only conflicts with metacopy=on if upperdir=... is
+given.
+
+Sharing and copying layers
+--------------------------
+
+Lower layers may be shared among several overlay mounts and that is indeed
+a very common practice.  An overlay mount may use the same lower layer
+path as another overlay mount and it may use a lower layer path that is
+beneath or above the path of another overlay lower layer path.
+
+Using an upper layer path and/or a workdir path that are already used by
+another overlay mount is not allowed and may fail with EBUSY.  Using
+partially overlapping paths is not allowed and may fail with EBUSY.
+If files are accessed from two overlayfs mounts which share or overlap the
+upper layer and/or workdir path the behavior of the overlay is undefined,
+though it will not result in a crash or deadlock.
+
+Mounting an overlay using an upper layer path, where the upper layer path
+was previously used by another mounted overlay in combination with a
+different lower layer path, is allowed, unless the "inodes index" feature
+or "metadata only copy up" feature is enabled.
+
+With the "inodes index" feature, on the first time mount, an NFS file
+handle of the lower layer root directory, along with the UUID of the lower
+filesystem, are encoded and stored in the "trusted.overlay.origin" extended
+attribute on the upper layer root directory.  On subsequent mount attempts,
+the lower root directory file handle and lower filesystem UUID are compared
+to the stored origin in upper root directory.  On failure to verify the
+lower root origin, mount will fail with ESTALE.  An overlayfs mount with
+"inodes index" enabled will fail with EOPNOTSUPP if the lower filesystem
+does not support NFS export, lower filesystem does not have a valid UUID or
+if the upper filesystem does not support extended attributes.
+
+For "metadata only copy up" feature there is no verification mechanism at
+mount time. So if same upper is mounted with different set of lower, mount
+probably will succeed but expect the unexpected later on. So don't do it.
+
+It is quite a common practice to copy overlay layers to a different
+directory tree on the same or different underlying filesystem, and even
+to a different machine.  With the "inodes index" feature, trying to mount
+the copied layers will fail the verification of the lower root file handle.
+
+
+Non-standard behavior
+---------------------
+
+Current version of overlayfs can act as a mostly POSIX compliant
+filesystem.
+
+This is the list of cases that overlayfs doesn't currently handle:
+
+a) POSIX mandates updating st_atime for reads.  This is currently not
+done in the case when the file resides on a lower layer.
+
+b) If a file residing on a lower layer is opened for read-only and then
+memory mapped with MAP_SHARED, then subsequent changes to the file are not
+reflected in the memory mapping.
+
+The following options allow overlayfs to act more like a standards
+compliant filesystem:
+
+1) "redirect_dir"
+
+Enabled with the mount option or module option: "redirect_dir=on" or with
+the kernel config option CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR=y.
+
+If this feature is disabled, then rename(2) on a lower or merged directory
+will fail with EXDEV ("Invalid cross-device link").
+
+2) "inode index"
+
+Enabled with the mount option or module option "index=on" or with the
+kernel config option CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX=y.
+
+If this feature is disabled and a file with multiple hard links is copied
+up, then this will "break" the link.  Changes will not be propagated to
+other names referring to the same inode.
+
+3) "xino"
+
+Enabled with the mount option "xino=auto" or "xino=on", with the module
+option "xino_auto=on" or with the kernel config option
+CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_XINO_AUTO=y.  Also implicitly enabled by using the same
+underlying filesystem for all layers making up the overlay.
+
+If this feature is disabled or the underlying filesystem doesn't have
+enough free bits in the inode number, then overlayfs will not be able to
+guarantee that the values of st_ino and st_dev returned by stat(2) and the
+value of d_ino returned by readdir(3) will act like on a normal filesystem.
+E.g. the value of st_dev may be different for two objects in the same
+overlay filesystem and the value of st_ino for directory objects may not be
+persistent and could change even while the overlay filesystem is mounted, as
+summarized in the `Inode properties`_ table above.
+
+
+Changes to underlying filesystems
+---------------------------------
+
+Offline changes, when the overlay is not mounted, are allowed to either
+the upper or the lower trees.
+
+Changes to the underlying filesystems while part of a mounted overlay
+filesystem are not allowed.  If the underlying filesystem is changed,
+the behavior of the overlay is undefined, though it will not result in
+a crash or deadlock.
+
+When the overlay NFS export feature is enabled, overlay filesystems
+behavior on offline changes of the underlying lower layer is different
+than the behavior when NFS export is disabled.
+
+On every copy_up, an NFS file handle of the lower inode, along with the
+UUID of the lower filesystem, are encoded and stored in an extended
+attribute "trusted.overlay.origin" on the upper inode.
+
+When the NFS export feature is enabled, a lookup of a merged directory,
+that found a lower directory at the lookup path or at the path pointed
+to by the "trusted.overlay.redirect" extended attribute, will verify
+that the found lower directory file handle and lower filesystem UUID
+match the origin file handle that was stored at copy_up time.  If a
+found lower directory does not match the stored origin, that directory
+will not be merged with the upper directory.
+
+
+
+NFS export
+----------
+
+When the underlying filesystems supports NFS export and the "nfs_export"
+feature is enabled, an overlay filesystem may be exported to NFS.
+
+With the "nfs_export" feature, on copy_up of any lower object, an index
+entry is created under the index directory.  The index entry name is the
+hexadecimal representation of the copy up origin file handle.  For a
+non-directory object, the index entry is a hard link to the upper inode.
+For a directory object, the index entry has an extended attribute
+"trusted.overlay.upper" with an encoded file handle of the upper
+directory inode.
+
+When encoding a file handle from an overlay filesystem object, the
+following rules apply:
+
+1. For a non-upper object, encode a lower file handle from lower inode
+2. For an indexed object, encode a lower file handle from copy_up origin
+3. For a pure-upper object and for an existing non-indexed upper object,
+   encode an upper file handle from upper inode
+
+The encoded overlay file handle includes:
+ - Header including path type information (e.g. lower/upper)
+ - UUID of the underlying filesystem
+ - Underlying filesystem encoding of underlying inode
+
+This encoding format is identical to the encoding format file handles that
+are stored in extended attribute "trusted.overlay.origin".
+
+When decoding an overlay file handle, the following steps are followed:
+
+1. Find underlying layer by UUID and path type information.
+2. Decode the underlying filesystem file handle to underlying dentry.
+3. For a lower file handle, lookup the handle in index directory by name.
+4. If a whiteout is found in index, return ESTALE. This represents an
+   overlay object that was deleted after its file handle was encoded.
+5. For a non-directory, instantiate a disconnected overlay dentry from the
+   decoded underlying dentry, the path type and index inode, if found.
+6. For a directory, use the connected underlying decoded dentry, path type
+   and index, to lookup a connected overlay dentry.
+
+Decoding a non-directory file handle may return a disconnected dentry.
+copy_up of that disconnected dentry will create an upper index entry with
+no upper alias.
+
+When overlay filesystem has multiple lower layers, a middle layer
+directory may have a "redirect" to lower directory.  Because middle layer
+"redirects" are not indexed, a lower file handle that was encoded from the
+"redirect" origin directory, cannot be used to find the middle or upper
+layer directory.  Similarly, a lower file handle that was encoded from a
+descendant of the "redirect" origin directory, cannot be used to
+reconstruct a connected overlay path.  To mitigate the cases of
+directories that cannot be decoded from a lower file handle, these
+directories are copied up on encode and encoded as an upper file handle.
+On an overlay filesystem with no upper layer this mitigation cannot be
+used NFS export in this setup requires turning off redirect follow (e.g.
+"redirect_dir=nofollow").
+
+The overlay filesystem does not support non-directory connectable file
+handles, so exporting with the 'subtree_check' exportfs configuration will
+cause failures to lookup files over NFS.
+
+When the NFS export feature is enabled, all directory index entries are
+verified on mount time to check that upper file handles are not stale.
+This verification may cause significant overhead in some cases.
+
+Note: the mount options index=off,nfs_export=on are conflicting for a
+read-write mount and will result in an error.
+
+
+Volatile mount
+--------------
+
+This is enabled with the "volatile" mount option.  Volatile mounts are not
+guaranteed to survive a crash.  It is strongly recommended that volatile
+mounts are only used if data written to the overlay can be recreated
+without significant effort.
+
+The advantage of mounting with the "volatile" option is that all forms of
+sync calls to the upper filesystem are omitted.
+
+In order to avoid a giving a false sense of safety, the syncfs (and fsync)
+semantics of volatile mounts are slightly different than that of the rest of
+VFS.  If any writeback error occurs on the upperdir's filesystem after a
+volatile mount takes place, all sync functions will return an error.  Once this
+condition is reached, the filesystem will not recover, and every subsequent sync
+call will return an error, even if the upperdir has not experience a new error
+since the last sync call.
+
+When overlay is mounted with "volatile" option, the directory
+"$workdir/work/incompat/volatile" is created.  During next mount, overlay
+checks for this directory and refuses to mount if present. This is a strong
+indicator that user should throw away upper and work directories and create
+fresh one. In very limited cases where the user knows that the system has
+not crashed and contents of upperdir are intact, The "volatile" directory
+can be removed.
+
+Testsuite
+---------
+
+There's a testsuite originally developed by David Howells and currently
+maintained by Amir Goldstein at:
+
+  https://github.com/amir73il/unionmount-testsuite.git
+
+Run as root:
+
+  # cd unionmount-testsuite
+  # ./run --ov --verify