RE: Loopback (dir->dir) mounting (NOT -o loop)

[Chemolli Francesco]

> > For most uses, the illusion of multiple mounts is provided 
> very nicely
> > by symbolic links.  It works, and programs which should not 
> be confused
> > can make a point of not following links.  For example a program that
> > does "rm -rf" in /tmp.
> > 
> > So what use is mount -t bind?
> > 
> > One use is to hide the fact that anything is linked.  This 
> it does very
> > well.  Disturbingly well :-) I don't know of a legitimate 
> use for this
> > though.
> > 
> 
> There is plenty -- the chief one is to provide the same namespace on a
> whole collection of machines.  autofs currently uses symlinks (well,
> 3.1.5 supports mount -t bind) and it is a neverending source of
> complaints.

Another I can think of is to allow for a smaller (and maybe readonly)
root filesystem: just bind-mount /var/tmp over /tmp...
Yes, it could be done with symlinks, but this is cuter :-)

	/kinkie