Bug 2230 - Make /etc/mtab a symlink to /proc/self/mounts in Mageia 2
Summary: Make /etc/mtab a symlink to /proc/self/mounts in Mageia 2
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: Cauldron
Hardware: All Linux
Priority: Normal normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mageia Bug Squad
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Blocks: 1157 1994
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Reported: 2011-07-22 00:52 CEST by Christiaan Welvaart
Modified: 2011-10-23 21:49 CEST (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Christiaan Welvaart 2011-07-22 00:52:59 CEST 
Mageia 2 technical spec #024
see also https://mageia.org/wiki/doku.php?id=iso2:technical_specification

Currenctly, /etc/mtab is updated by mount and /sbin/mount.* . This does not always works reliably and requires all these programs to be setuid-root. Symlinking /etc/mtab to /proc/self/mounts which is maintained by the kernel provides a correct and up-to-date list of mounted filesystems to each running process (even in chroots). It allows removing the setuid bit of the mount helper programs, fixing bug #1157 . Systemd apparently requires /etc/mtab to be such a symlink.

I have always symlinked /etc/mtab to /proc/mounts and never encountered any serious problem.

This bug was reported on the setup package because it 'owns' /etc/mtab, but everything that must be fixed is probably in other packages.
Manuel Hiebel 2011-07-22 01:04:13 CEST

Blocks: (none) => 1994

Comment 1 Christiaan Welvaart 2011-07-22 02:19:35 CEST 
debian bugreport for this: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=494001
Christiaan Welvaart 2011-07-24 12:08:45 CEST

Blocks: (none) => 1157

Comment 2 D Morgan 2011-10-23 21:49:25 CEST 
fixed in SVN ( util-linux ).

will be pushed on cauldron soon.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
CC: (none) => dmorganec
Resolution: (none) => FIXED
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