diff --git a/pkg/sentry/vfs/BUILD b/pkg/sentry/vfs/BUILD
index eff4b44f6..4f2c2de9f 100644
--- a/pkg/sentry/vfs/BUILD
+++ b/pkg/sentry/vfs/BUILD
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ go_library(
         "file_description.go",
         "file_description_impl_util.go",
         "filesystem.go",
+        "filesystem_impl_util.go",
         "filesystem_type.go",
         "mount.go",
         "mount_unsafe.go",
diff --git a/pkg/sentry/vfs/filesystem_impl_util.go b/pkg/sentry/vfs/filesystem_impl_util.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..465e610e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkg/sentry/vfs/filesystem_impl_util.go
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+// Copyright 2019 The gVisor Authors.
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+package vfs
+
+import (
+	"strings"
+)
+
+// GenericParseMountOptions parses a comma-separated list of options of the
+// form "key" or "key=value", where neither key nor value contain commas, and
+// returns it as a map. If str contains duplicate keys, then the last value
+// wins. For example:
+//
+// str = "key0=value0,key1,key2=value2,key0=value3" -> map{'key0':'value3','key1':'','key2':'value2'}
+//
+// GenericParseMountOptions is not appropriate if values may contain commas,
+// e.g. in the case of the mpol mount option for tmpfs(5).
+func GenericParseMountOptions(str string) map[string]string {
+	m := make(map[string]string)
+	for _, opt := range strings.Split(str, ",") {
+		if len(opt) > 0 {
+			res := strings.SplitN(opt, "=", 2)
+			if len(res) == 2 {
+				m[res[0]] = res[1]
+			} else {
+				m[opt] = ""
+			}
+		}
+	}
+	return m
+}