Bug 116670

Summary:	mount prints confusing error message when user passes it two directories to mount
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Alexandre Oliva <oliva>
Component:	util-linux	Assignee:	Elliot Lee <sopwith>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Ben Levenson <benl>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	rawhide	CC:	p.van.egdom
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2004-12-02 20:57:01 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Alexandre Oliva 2004-02-24 10:10:06 UTC

From Bugzilla Helper:
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Description of problem:
Assume there are two user-mountable dirs in /etc/fstab, and a user
attempts to mount them both with a single command line (if it works
with umount, it should work with mount, right?)  It turns out that
mount prints a very confusing error message.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
util-linux-2.12pre-3

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
As a non-root user, given that /foo and /bar are user-mountable, run:
1.mount /foo
2.mount /bar
3.umount /foo /bar
4.mount /foo /bar
5.su -
6.mount /foo /bar

Actual Results:  1-3 work; 4 fails with: mount: only root can do that.
 6 explains why: mount: /foo is not a block device.

Expected Results:  it would be nice if mount could print a less
confusing error message, say, only root can specify both device name
and mount point

Additional info:

Comment 1 Elliot Lee 2004-12-02 20:57:01 UTC

mount can't figure out the exact actual error message until it has
tried doing the mount. This would be a security hole for non-root
users, and I believe the "only root can do that" error message can be
triggered by situations other than specifying both a device name and
mount point. The upshot is that not much can change without causing
other problems.