Overlayfs: 'Special device overlay doesn't exist'

Question

I'm trying to use the overlay filesystem driver, and it's giving me an error:

$ sudo mount -t overlay overlay -o lowerdir=/mnt/ccs-overlayfs-lower,upperdir=/mnt/ccs-overlayfs/upper,workdir=/mnt/ccs/overlayfs-work /mnt/ccs
mount: special device overlay does not exist

Every bit of documentation I've seen uses the device overlay, so why am I having problems?

Answer 1

The error message is actually a red herring. Check the spelling of your lowerdir, upperdir, and workdir paths. If there is any mistake, the overlay driver will give you that nonsense about the device not existing, where instead it should be saying "hey, your lowerdir doesn't exist!" or something.

I found this solution on the Arch Linux forums: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1599436#p1599436