From owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 1 18:20:13 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B500D106564A for ; Sat, 1 Jan 2011 18:20:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gnats@FreeBSD.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 885CF8FC14 for ; Sat, 1 Jan 2011 18:20:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p01IKDG8049837 for ; Sat, 1 Jan 2011 18:20:13 GMT (envelope-from gnats@freefall.freebsd.org) Received: (from gnats@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id p01IKDoU049836; Sat, 1 Jan 2011 18:20:13 GMT (envelope-from gnats) Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2011 18:20:13 GMT Message-Id: <201101011820.p01IKDoU049836@freefall.freebsd.org> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org From: Bruce Evans Cc: Subject: Re: bin/153600: Path length restrictions in mount/umount tools prevent filesystem mount/unmount X-BeenThere: freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Bruce Evans List-Id: Bug reports List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:20:13 -0000 The following reply was made to PR bin/153600; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Bruce Evans To: Roger Leigh Cc: freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org, freebsd-bugs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: bin/153600: Path length restrictions in mount/umount tools prevent filesystem mount/unmount Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 05:13:16 +1100 (EST) On Sat, 1 Jan 2011, Roger Leigh wrote: > t@mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64 >> Description: > When mount is asked to mount a filesystem on a node whose absolute path is longer than 85 characters in length, the mount fails. Umount also fails under some circumstances, though the testcase attached below doesn't show this. > ... >> Fix: > I suspect that the mount/umount tools are using a fixed-length buffer and/or are truncating the path at some point. > > The mount(2) manual page documents the max path length at 1023 characters, and the maximum length of any single component at 255 characters. These limits have not been exceeded, unless the documentation is incorrect. > > The practical upper limit of 80-85 characters demonstrated in this bug report is very low. The documented [ENAMETOOLONG] limit in mount(2) is sensible, but does not appear to reflect the practical reality at the present time. If the 80-85 character limit could be eliminated to allow this to work as documented, this would remove a significant limitation in the FreeBSD system which is breaking software which requires longer paths to function. Mount name lengths are in practice limited to (MNAMELEN - 1) = 87. See . This isn't easy to fix, since MNAMELEN is in critical APIs (mainly struct statfs). struct statfs has already been changed once too often. MNAMELEN used to be (80 - 2 * sizeof(long)), which is 80 or 72, but was changed to 88. MNAMELEN is of course mentioned in statfs(2), but it isn't mentioned in mount(2) because it doesn't apply to the actual mount operation but only to determining what is mounted using statfs(2). The buffer gets truncated at mount time by mount in the kernel copying the file name to the statfs buffer with blind truncation. In practice, this means that you should never use the feature of mounting pathnames with length between MNAMELEN and (PATH_MAX - 1), since it is too hard to manage the resulting mountpoints. Bruce