From: Jesse Van Gavere <jesse.vangavere@teledyne.com>

This requirement has not been true since v4.8 when automatic cleanup was
added in commit eea2fb4851e9 ("ovl: proper cleanup of workdir")

Signed-off-by: Jesse Van Gavere <jesse.vangavere@teledyne.com>
---
 Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
index eb846518e6ac..7e28bfb4a99e 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
@@ -123,8 +123,8 @@ At mount time, the two directories given as mount options "lowerdir" and
   mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,\
   workdir=/work /merged
 
-The "workdir" needs to be an empty directory on the same filesystem
-as upperdir.
+The "workdir" will be cleaned up at mount time and needs to be on the same
+filesystem as upperdir.
 
 Then whenever a lookup is requested in such a merged directory, the
 lookup is performed in each actual directory and the combined result

---
base-commit: 58717b2a1365d06c8c64b72aa948541b53fe31eb
change-id: 20260715-overlayfs-rst-update-750d58792f79

Best regards,
--  
Jesse Van Gavere <jesse.vangavere@teledyne.com>

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 3:52 PM Jesse Van Gavere via B4 Relay
<devnull+jesse.vangavere.teledyne.com@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> From: Jesse Van Gavere <jesse.vangavere@teledyne.com>
>
> This requirement has not been true since v4.8 when automatic cleanup was
> added in commit eea2fb4851e9 ("ovl: proper cleanup of workdir")
>
> Signed-off-by: Jesse Van Gavere <jesse.vangavere@teledyne.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
> index eb846518e6ac..7e28bfb4a99e 100644
> --- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.rst
> @@ -123,8 +123,8 @@ At mount time, the two directories given as mount options "lowerdir" and
>    mount -t overlay overlay -olowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,\
>    workdir=/work /merged
>
> -The "workdir" needs to be an empty directory on the same filesystem
> -as upperdir.
> +The "workdir" will be cleaned up at mount time and needs to be on the same
> +filesystem as upperdir.

That's not accurate.
workdir/work is removed
workdir/index is not

but I don't want to get into those nuances here.

Better just drop the wrong "needs t be empty" part


Thanks,
Amir.

>
>  Then whenever a lookup is requested in such a merged directory, the
>  lookup is performed in each actual directory and the combined result
>
> ---
> base-commit: 58717b2a1365d06c8c64b72aa948541b53fe31eb
> change-id: 20260715-overlayfs-rst-update-750d58792f79
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Jesse Van Gavere <jesse.vangavere@teledyne.com>
>
>