[Bug 533761] [NEW] Redirected filesystem using bind option suddenly thinks every file is a directory

[Captain Chaos]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: util-linux

Please, someone respond quickly. I have left the situation as is so I
can try to examine the situation with your suggestions, but I'm afraid
that when I reboot the situation will have righted itself and it will be
very hard to reproduce.

A bizarre problem just occurred on my workstation: a number of
directories mounted using the "bind" option has suddenly started to show
every file in the directory with the same permissions as the directory,
including the fact that it is a directory! In other words, Linux
suddenly thinks all the files in my bound directory are directories!

Here's the relevant part of /etc/fstab:

//diskstation/home	/home/pepijn_remote	cifs	credentials=/home/pepijn .smbcredentials,uid=pepijn,gid=pepijn,iocharset=utf8	0	0
/home/pepijn_remote/Documents	/home/pepijn/Documents	none	bind	0	0
/home/pepijn_remote/Downloads	/home/pepijn/Downloads	none	bind	0	0
/home/pepijn_remote/Public	/home/pepijn/Public	none	bind	0	0
/home/pepijn_remote/Templates	/home/pepijn/Templates	none	bind	0	0
/home/pepijn_remote/eBooks	/home/pepijn/eBooks	none	bind	0	0
/home/pepijn_remote/Archive	/home/pepijn/Archive	none	bind	0	0

As you can see, I mount my remote home directory from my NAS on
/home/pepijn_remote using CIFS. I then bind some of the directories from
that share in my real home directory. This has worked perfectly for
months now.

Suddenly, today, all hell broke loose. Programs started going haywire.
It turned out that this was because Linux had suddenly decided that all
the files in my directories were now directories! As you can imagine my
IDE went berserk. To illustrate, here's (the first few lines of) the
result of an "ls -al" in /home/pepijn_remote/Documents:

total 256
drwxrwxrw- 12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-02-09 22:50 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 pepijn pepijn 14702 2010-02-12 12:43 Afrekening Merlot.ods
-rw-r--r--  1 pepijn pepijn 22287 2010-01-15 19:37 Afrekening New York en Atlanta.ods
-rw-r--r--  1 pepijn pepijn 13153 2010-02-18 11:34 Amerika 2010.ods
drwxrwxrwx  3 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-01-06 13:04 Belastingdienst
-rw-r--r--  1 pepijn pepijn 11795 2009-12-05 18:14 certificates.p12
drwxrwxr-x 33 pepijn pepijn     0 2009-12-05 16:32 Correspondentie
-rwxrwxrwx  1 pepijn pepijn   402 2009-12-10 21:43 desktop.ini
-rw-r--r--  1 pepijn pepijn 27385 2010-02-26 14:42 Domeinen.ods
-rw-r--r--  1 pepijn pepijn  6633 2010-01-17 14:34 dosemu.out
drwxrwxrwx  2 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-01-21 12:51 Downloads

Perfectly normal. But here's the result of the same command in
/home/pepijn/Documents (which should be exactly the same, and has been
for months):

total 12
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 139 pepijn pepijn 12288 2010-03-07 12:44 ..
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Afrekening Merlot.ods
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Afrekening New York en Atlanta.ods
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Amerika 2010.ods
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Belastingdienst
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 certificates.p12
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Correspondentie
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 desktop.ini
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Domeinen.ods
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 dosemu.out
drwxrwxrw-  12 pepijn pepijn     0 2010-03-07 12:24 Downloads

As you can see it thinks every file is a directory!  In fact, the
permissions of every entry are precisely that same as for ., the current
directory. I have verified that the same goes for the other directories
redirected using the "bind" option, they all have the same permissions
as . for every file in the directory.

I'll leave the situation like this for a short while so that someone can
*quickly* ask me to try out commands to examine the problem. I have
looked in the system log files and the output of "dmesg", but I see
nothing out of the ordinary there.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Mar  7 13:05:16 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: mount 2.16-1ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.57-generic
SourcePackage: util-linux
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64

** Affects: util-linux (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug

-- 
Redirected filesystem using bind option suddenly thinks every file is a directory
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/533761
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