[fuse-devel] /etc/mtab as a symbolic link

[Javier P. <jp...@us...>]

Hi,

I have come across some strange behaviour with FUSE and /etc/mtab.
In my system, /etc/mtab is a symbolic link to /var/run/mtab, so
that the root partition can be mounted readonly while still having
a mount-managed mtab file whose contents are available through the
standard /etc/mtab. (I run modified versions of mount/umount that
look for the mtab file in /var/run, so they can acquire locks in
the right (writable) directory.) I installed FUSE a week ago, not
knowing that it also modifies /etc/mtab, along with sshfs, and I
have found that mounting with 'sshfs' correctly updates the mtab
file, but unmounting with 'fusermount -u' fails to do so, leaving
a "fake" entry in the mtab file. Is this expected behaviour? I have
read comments in the code that seem to suggest that /etc/mtab as a
symbolic link is indeed supported, but maybe it is so only when it
points to /proc/mounts. Is this right?

Thanks,
Javier