Turns out that the /etc/network/interfaces stuff I mentioned before was a red herring, here is the actual problem.
Without overlayroot the (nfs) root filesystem is mounted at /, and on reboot/shutdown /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh will skip that mount point when unmounting the network file systems (because of lines 49 & 50 of /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh). With overlayroot enabled, the "root" filesystem is mounted at /, but the nfs mount that is "under" the overlay is mounted at /media/root-ro, which is NOT skipped during reboot/shutdown. The fix I have in place is to change line 49 of /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh from: /|/proc|/dev|/dev/pts|/dev/shm|/proc/*|/sys|/run|/run/*) to: /|/proc|/dev|/dev/pts|/dev/shm|/proc/*|/sys|/run|/run/*|/media/root- ro) And I am able to reboot/shutdown properly. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1165886 Title: overlayroot prevents shutdown / reboot under nfsroot To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cloud-initramfs-tools/+bug/1165886/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs