diff --git a/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/apply_raw.go b/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/apply_raw.go
index 4da3b734e..fd7077edc 100644
--- a/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/apply_raw.go
+++ b/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/apply_raw.go
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/cgroups"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/configs"
+	libcontainerUtils "github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/utils"
 )
 
 var (
@@ -267,30 +268,6 @@ func getCgroupPath(c *configs.Cgroup) (string, error) {
 	return d.path("devices")
 }
 
-// pathClean makes a path safe for use with filepath.Join. This is done by not
-// only cleaning the path, but also (if the path is relative) adding a leading
-// '/' and cleaning it (then removing the leading '/'). This ensures that a
-// path resulting from prepending another path will always resolve to lexically
-// be a subdirectory of the prefixed path. This is all done lexically, so paths
-// that include symlinks won't be safe as a result of using pathClean.
-func pathClean(path string) string {
-	// Ensure that all paths are cleaned (especially problematic ones like
-	// "/../../../../../" which can cause lots of issues).
-	path = filepath.Clean(path)
-
-	// If the path isn't absolute, we need to do more processing to fix paths
-	// such as "../../../../<etc>/some/path". We also shouldn't convert absolute
-	// paths to relative ones.
-	if !filepath.IsAbs(path) {
-		path = filepath.Clean(string(os.PathSeparator) + path)
-		// This can't fail, as (by definition) all paths are relative to root.
-		path, _ = filepath.Rel(string(os.PathSeparator), path)
-	}
-
-	// Clean the path again for good measure.
-	return filepath.Clean(path)
-}
-
 func getCgroupData(c *configs.Cgroup, pid int) (*cgroupData, error) {
 	root, err := getCgroupRoot()
 	if err != nil {
@@ -298,7 +275,7 @@ func getCgroupData(c *configs.Cgroup, pid int) (*cgroupData, error) {
 	}
 
 	// Clean the parent slice path.
-	c.Parent = pathClean(c.Parent)
+	c.Parent = libcontainerUtils.CleanPath(c.Parent)
 
 	return &cgroupData{
 		root:   root,
diff --git a/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/cpuset.go b/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/cpuset.go
index ed1002316..cbe62bd98 100644
--- a/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/cpuset.go
+++ b/libcontainer/cgroups/fs/cpuset.go
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/cgroups"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/configs"
+	libcontainerUtils "github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/utils"
 )
 
 type CpusetGroup struct {
@@ -88,7 +89,7 @@ func (s *CpusetGroup) getSubsystemSettings(parent string) (cpus []byte, mems []b
 // it's parent.
 func (s *CpusetGroup) ensureParent(current, root string) error {
 	parent := filepath.Dir(current)
-	if filepath.Clean(parent) == root {
+	if libcontainerUtils.CleanPath(parent) == root {
 		return nil
 	}
 	// Avoid infinite recursion.
diff --git a/libcontainer/rootfs_linux.go b/libcontainer/rootfs_linux.go
index aa061ab08..5ea6ff01b 100644
--- a/libcontainer/rootfs_linux.go
+++ b/libcontainer/rootfs_linux.go
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/configs"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/label"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/system"
+	libcontainerUtils "github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/utils"
 )
 
 const defaultMountFlags = syscall.MS_NOEXEC | syscall.MS_NOSUID | syscall.MS_NODEV
@@ -294,7 +295,7 @@ func getCgroupMounts(m *configs.Mount) ([]*configs.Mount, error) {
 // checkMountDestination checks to ensure that the mount destination is not over the top of /proc.
 // dest is required to be an abs path and have any symlinks resolved before calling this function.
 func checkMountDestination(rootfs, dest string) error {
-	if filepath.Clean(rootfs) == filepath.Clean(dest) {
+	if libcontainerUtils.CleanPath(rootfs) == libcontainerUtils.CleanPath(dest) {
 		return fmt.Errorf("mounting into / is prohibited")
 	}
 	invalidDestinations := []string{
diff --git a/libcontainer/utils/utils.go b/libcontainer/utils/utils.go
index 1378006b0..1f5528ff3 100644
--- a/libcontainer/utils/utils.go
+++ b/libcontainer/utils/utils.go
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import (
 	"encoding/hex"
 	"encoding/json"
 	"io"
+	"os"
 	"path/filepath"
 	"syscall"
 )
@@ -54,3 +55,27 @@ func WriteJSON(w io.Writer, v interface{}) error {
 	_, err = w.Write(data)
 	return err
 }
+
+// CleanPath makes a path safe for use with filepath.Join. This is done by not
+// only cleaning the path, but also (if the path is relative) adding a leading
+// '/' and cleaning it (then removing the leading '/'). This ensures that a
+// path resulting from prepending another path will always resolve to lexically
+// be a subdirectory of the prefixed path. This is all done lexically, so paths
+// that include symlinks won't be safe as a result of using CleanPath.
+func CleanPath(path string) string {
+	// Ensure that all paths are cleaned (especially problematic ones like
+	// "/../../../../../" which can cause lots of issues).
+	path = filepath.Clean(path)
+
+	// If the path isn't absolute, we need to do more processing to fix paths
+	// such as "../../../../<etc>/some/path". We also shouldn't convert absolute
+	// paths to relative ones.
+	if !filepath.IsAbs(path) {
+		path = filepath.Clean(string(os.PathSeparator) + path)
+		// This can't fail, as (by definition) all paths are relative to root.
+		path, _ = filepath.Rel(string(os.PathSeparator), path)
+	}
+
+	// Clean the path again for good measure.
+	return filepath.Clean(path)
+}