| v9fs: Plan 9 Resource Sharing for Linux |
| ======================================= |
| |
| ABOUT |
| ===== |
| |
| v9fs is a Unix implementation of the Plan 9 9p remote filesystem protocol. |
| |
| This software was originally developed by Ron Minnich <rminnich@sandia.gov> |
| and Maya Gokhale. Additional development by Greg Watson |
| <gwatson@lanl.gov> and most recently Eric Van Hensbergen |
| <ericvh@gmail.com>, Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@ionkov.net> and Russ Cox |
| <rsc@swtch.com>. |
| |
| The best detailed explanation of the Linux implementation and applications of |
| the 9p client is available in the form of a USENIX paper: |
| http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix05/tech/freenix/hensbergen.html |
| |
| Other applications are described in the following papers: |
| * XCPU & Clustering |
| http://www.xcpu.org/xcpu-talk.pdf |
| * KVMFS: control file system for KVM |
| http://www.xcpu.org/kvmfs.pdf |
| * CellFS: A New ProgrammingModel for the Cell BE |
| http://www.xcpu.org/cellfs-talk.pdf |
| * PROSE I/O: Using 9p to enable Application Partitions |
| http://plan9.escet.urjc.es/iwp9/cready/PROSE_iwp9_2006.pdf |
| |
| USAGE |
| ===== |
| |
| For remote file server: |
| |
| mount -t 9p 10.10.1.2 /mnt/9 |
| |
| For Plan 9 From User Space applications (http://swtch.com/plan9) |
| |
| mount -t 9p `namespace`/acme /mnt/9 -o trans=unix,uname=$USER |
| |
| OPTIONS |
| ======= |
| |
| trans=name select an alternative transport. Valid options are |
| currently: |
| unix - specifying a named pipe mount point |
| tcp - specifying a normal TCP/IP connection |
| fd - used passed file descriptors for connection |
| (see rfdno and wfdno) |
| virtio - connect to the next virtio channel available |
| (from lguest or KVM with trans_virtio module) |
| |
| uname=name user name to attempt mount as on the remote server. The |
| server may override or ignore this value. Certain user |
| names may require authentication. |
| |
| aname=name aname specifies the file tree to access when the server is |
| offering several exported file systems. |
| |
| cache=mode specifies a caching policy. By default, no caches are used. |
| loose = no attempts are made at consistency, |
| intended for exclusive, read-only mounts |
| |
| debug=n specifies debug level. The debug level is a bitmask. |
| 0x01 = display verbose error messages |
| 0x02 = developer debug (DEBUG_CURRENT) |
| 0x04 = display 9p trace |
| 0x08 = display VFS trace |
| 0x10 = display Marshalling debug |
| 0x20 = display RPC debug |
| 0x40 = display transport debug |
| 0x80 = display allocation debug |
| |
| rfdno=n the file descriptor for reading with trans=fd |
| |
| wfdno=n the file descriptor for writing with trans=fd |
| |
| maxdata=n the number of bytes to use for 9p packet payload (msize) |
| |
| port=n port to connect to on the remote server |
| |
| noextend force legacy mode (no 9p2000.u semantics) |
| |
| dfltuid attempt to mount as a particular uid |
| |
| dfltgid attempt to mount with a particular gid |
| |
| afid security channel - used by Plan 9 authentication protocols |
| |
| nodevmap do not map special files - represent them as normal files. |
| This can be used to share devices/named pipes/sockets between |
| hosts. This functionality will be expanded in later versions. |
| |
| access there are three access modes. |
| user = if a user tries to access a file on v9fs |
| filesystem for the first time, v9fs sends an |
| attach command (Tattach) for that user. |
| This is the default mode. |
| <uid> = allows only user with uid=<uid> to access |
| the files on the mounted filesystem |
| any = v9fs does single attach and performs all |
| operations as one user |
| |
| RESOURCES |
| ========= |
| |
| Our current recommendation is to use Inferno (http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno) |
| as the 9p server. You can start a 9p server under Inferno by issuing the |
| following command: |
| ; styxlisten -A tcp!*!564 export '#U*' |
| |
| The -A specifies an unauthenticated export. The 564 is the port # (you may |
| have to choose a higher port number if running as a normal user). The '#U*' |
| specifies exporting the root of the Linux name space. You may specify a |
| subset of the namespace by extending the path: '#U*'/tmp would just export |
| /tmp. For more information, see the Inferno manual pages covering styxlisten |
| and export. |
| |
| A Linux version of the 9p server is now maintained under the npfs project |
| on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/npfs). The currently |
| maintained version is the single-threaded version of the server (named spfs) |
| available from the same CVS repository. |
| |
| There are user and developer mailing lists available through the v9fs project |
| on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/v9fs). |
| |
| News and other information is maintained on SWiK (http://swik.net/v9fs). |
| |
| Bug reports may be issued through the kernel.org bugzilla |
| (http://bugzilla.kernel.org) |
| |
| For more information on the Plan 9 Operating System check out |
| http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9 |
| |
| For information on Plan 9 from User Space (Plan 9 applications and libraries |
| ported to Linux/BSD/OSX/etc) check out http://swtch.com/plan9 |
| |
| |
| STATUS |
| ====== |
| |
| The 2.6 kernel support is working on PPC and x86. |
| |
| PLEASE USE THE KERNEL BUGZILLA TO REPORT PROBLEMS. (http://bugzilla.kernel.org) |
| |