diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt
index c9e884b52698..36f528a7fdd6 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/overlayfs.txt
@@ -201,6 +201,40 @@ rightmost one and going left.  In the above example lower1 will be the
 top, lower2 the middle and lower3 the bottom layer.
 
 
+Sharing and copying layers
+--------------------------
+
+Lower layers may be shared among several overlay mounts and that is indeed
+a very common practice.  An overlay mount may use the same lower layer
+path as another overlay mount and it may use a lower layer path that is
+beneath or above the path of another overlay lower layer path.
+
+Using an upper layer path and/or a workdir path that are already used by
+another overlay mount is not allowed and will fail with EBUSY.  Using
+partially overlapping paths is not allowed but will not fail with EBUSY.
+
+Mounting an overlay using an upper layer path, where the upper layer path
+was previously used by another mounted overlay in combination with a
+different lower layer path, is allowed, unless the "inodes index" feature
+is enabled.
+
+With the "inodes index" feature, on the first time mount, an NFS file
+handle of the lower layer root directory, along with the UUID of the lower
+filesystem, are encoded and stored in the "trusted.overlay.origin" extended
+attribute on the upper layer root directory.  On subsequent mount attempts,
+the lower root directory file handle and lower filesystem UUID are compared
+to the stored origin in upper root directory.  On failure to verify the
+lower root origin, mount will fail with ESTALE.  An overlayfs mount with
+"inodes index" enabled will fail with EOPNOTSUPP if the lower filesystem
+does not support NFS export, lower filesystem does not have a valid UUID or
+if the upper filesystem does not support extended attributes.
+
+It is quite a common practice to copy overlay layers to a different
+directory tree on the same or different underlying filesystem, and even
+to a different machine.  With the "inodes index" feature, trying to mount
+the copied layers will fail the verification of the lower root file handle.
+
+
 Non-standard behavior
 ---------------------