This issue was discovered by users of busybox.  And the bug is actual for
busybox users, I don't know how it affects others.  Apparently, mount is
called with and without MS_SILENT, and this affects mount() behaviour.
But MS_SILENT is only supposed to affect kernel logging verbosity.

The following script was run in an empty test directory:

mkdir -p mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2
touch mount.dir/a mount.dir/b
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared1 mount.shared1
mount -vv --make-rshared mount.shared1
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared2 mount.shared2
mount -vv --make-rshared mount.shared2
mount -vv --bind mount.shared2 mount.shared1
mount -vv --bind mount.dir     mount.shared2
ls -R mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
rm -f mount.dir/a mount.dir/b mount.dir/c
rmdir mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2

mount -vv was used to show the mount() call arguments and result.
Output shows that flag argument has 0x00008000 = MS_SILENT bit:

mount: mount('mount.shared1','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared1','',0x0010c000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared2','',0x0010c000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('mount.dir','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount.dir:
a
b

mount.shared1:

mount.shared2:
a
b

After adding --loud option to remove MS_SILENT bit from just one mount cmd:

mkdir -p mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2
touch mount.dir/a mount.dir/b
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared1 mount.shared1 2>&1
mount -vv --make-rshared mount.shared1               2>&1
mount -vv --bind         mount.shared2 mount.shared2 2>&1
mount -vv --loud --make-rshared mount.shared2               2>&1  # <-HERE
mount -vv --bind mount.shared2 mount.shared1         2>&1
mount -vv --bind mount.dir     mount.shared2         2>&1
ls -R mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2      2>&1
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
umount mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2 2>/dev/null
rm -f mount.dir/a mount.dir/b mount.dir/c
rmdir mount.dir mount.shared1 mount.shared2

The result is different now - look closely at mount.shared1 directory listing.
Now it does show files 'a' and 'b':

mount: mount('mount.shared1','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared1','',0x0010c000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('','mount.shared2','',0x00104000,''):0
mount: mount('mount.shared2','mount.shared1','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0
mount: mount('mount.dir','mount.shared2','(null)',0x00009000,'(null)'):0

mount.dir:
a
b

mount.shared1:
a
b

mount.shared2:
a
b

The analysis shows that MS_SILENT flag which is ON by default in any
busybox-> mount operations cames to flags_to_propagation_type function and
causes the error return while is_power_of_2 checking because the function
expects only one bit set.  This doesn't allow to do busybox->mount with
any --make-[r]shared, --make-[r]private etc options.

Moreover, the recently added flags_to_propagation_type() function doesn't
allow us to do such operations as --make-[r]private --make-[r]shared etc.
when MS_SILENT is on.  The idea or clearing the MS_SILENT flag came from
to Denys Vlasenko.
Signed-off-by: Roman Borisov <ext-roman.borisov@nokia.com>
Reported-by: Denys Vlasenko <vda.linux@googlemail.com>
Cc: Chuck Ebbert <cebbert@redhat.com>
Cc: Alexander Shishkin <virtuoso@slind.org>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>