On 2017-08-22 13:41, Peter Grandi wrote:
[ ... ]

There is no fixed relationship between the root directory
inode of a subvolume and the root directory inode of any
other subvolume or the main volume.

Actually, there is, because it's inherently rooted in the
hierarchy of the volume itself. That root inode for the
subvolume is anchored somewhere under the next higher
subvolume.

This stupid point relies on ignoring that it is not mandatory to
mount the main volume, and that therefore "There is no fixed
relationship between the root directory inode of a subvolume and
the root directory inode of any other subvolume or the main
volume", because the "root directory inode" of the "main volume"
may not be mounted at all.

This stupid point also relies on ignoring that subvolumes can be
mounted *also* under another directory, even if the main volume
is mounted somewhere else. Suppose that the following applies:

   subvol=5     /local
   subvol=383   /local/.backup/home
   subvol=383   /mnt/home-backup

and you are given the mountpoint '/mnt/home-backup', how can you
find the main volume mountpoint '/local' from that?Assuming /mnt/home-backup is mounted and visible in /proc/mounts (your
explanation requires it was either mounted directly via a subvol option or indirectly via a bind mount), then the following generic method works (and should always work on a modern kernel): 1. Find it in /proc/mounts or the output of `mount` run without any arguments. 2. If the mount type is 'bind', the device field will point to the source directory. Using any method you like, figure out what the actual mount point that is under is, and repeat from step one with that mount point. 3. If the mount type is 'btrfs', and 'subvolid=5' is present in the mount options (this gets added automatically on any recent kernel), you just found the top level subvolume. 4. If the mount type is 'btrfs', and 'subvolid=5' is not present in the mount options, scan /proc/mounts for other entries with the same device value (this is going to be consistent). 5. If another entry does exist, and has 'subvolid=5' in the mount options, that's the top level subvolume. 6. If other entries exist, but 'subvolid=5' not in the mount options for any of them, or no other entries exist, the top level volume isn't mounted, and you can view it by mounting the device with 'subvolid=5'.

In the event that you need to know where the next higher level subvolume is mounted instead of the root subvolume for the volume, you can use the same method, but add the following after step two to figure out what subvolid to look for: 2b. Run `btrfs subvol show` on the mount point (it by definition has to be a subvolume because it's mounted and it's not a bind mount in userspace). Find the 'Top level ID' (note that this just points to the next higher subvolume, not the root subvolume) value in the output, and use that instead of 5 when looking for 'subvolid=' options.

Please explain how '/mnt/home-backup' is indeed "inherently
rooted in the hierarchy of the volume itself", because there is
always a "fixed relationship between the root directory inode of
a subvolume and the root directory inode of any other subvolume
or the main volume".
You did one of three things to mount that:
1. You used a bind mount directly. In this case, you're not changing the relation at all of the subvolume (which is technically not what's mounted in this case because a bind mount operates at the VFS layer and knows nothing about subvolumes) and it's parent subvolumes. 2. You mounted using 'subvol=.backup/home'. This in and of itself should pretty concisely explain that there is a hierarchical relationship between subvolumes. That path indicates the path in the hierarchy of the volume itself used to access the subvolume. 3. You mounted using 'subvolid=383'. This is the only case where there isn't a hierarchical relationship, and just uses the tree ID to reference the subvolume. This is the only case where there isn't some direct reference to the parent subvolume.

Note also that this relation is not inherent to the subvolume, but to it's parent. Just like a symbolic link, the reference is in the containing object, not the referenced object (although subvolumes do store info about what their parent subvolume is).

[ ... ]

Again, it does, it's just not inherently exposed to userspace
unless you mount the top-level subvolume (subvolid=5 and/or
subvol=/ in mount options).

This extra stupid point is based on ignoring that to "mount the
top-level subvolume" relies on knowing already which one is the
"top-level subvolume", which is begging the question.
You have information in /proc/mounts as to what is mounted. Trace your particular path up to that, and then mount the indicated block device with `-o subvolid=5`. The subvolume with ID 5 is _ALWAYS_ the top level subvolume for the volume, that's inherently hard coded in the filesystem format, so if that's all you want it's trivial to get it.
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