blob: c0236e753bc854a5a26a9a514465e81819564ccd [file] [log] [blame]
Eric Van Hensbergened1f5592006-03-25 03:07:30 -08001 v9fs: Plan 9 Resource Sharing for Linux
2 =======================================
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -07003
4ABOUT
5=====
6
7v9fs is a Unix implementation of the Plan 9 9p remote filesystem protocol.
8
Eric Van Hensbergen27a2a5f2007-07-23 13:06:13 -05009This software was originally developed by Ron Minnich <rminnich@sandia.gov>
10and Maya Gokhale. Additional development by Greg Watson
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070011<gwatson@lanl.gov> and most recently Eric Van Hensbergen
Eric Van Hensbergened1f5592006-03-25 03:07:30 -080012<ericvh@gmail.com>, Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@ionkov.net> and Russ Cox
13<rsc@swtch.com>.
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070014
Eric Van Hensbergen27a2a5f2007-07-23 13:06:13 -050015The best detailed explanation of the Linux implementation and applications of
16the 9p client is available in the form of a USENIX paper:
17 http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix05/tech/freenix/hensbergen.html
18
19Other applications are described in the following papers:
20 * XCPU & Clustering
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -050021 http://xcpu.org/papers/xcpu-talk.pdf
Eric Van Hensbergen27a2a5f2007-07-23 13:06:13 -050022 * KVMFS: control file system for KVM
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -050023 http://xcpu.org/papers/kvmfs.pdf
24 * CellFS: A New Programming Model for the Cell BE
25 http://xcpu.org/papers/cellfs-talk.pdf
Eric Van Hensbergen27a2a5f2007-07-23 13:06:13 -050026 * PROSE I/O: Using 9p to enable Application Partitions
27 http://plan9.escet.urjc.es/iwp9/cready/PROSE_iwp9_2006.pdf
28
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070029USAGE
30=====
31
32For remote file server:
33
Eric Van Hensbergened1f5592006-03-25 03:07:30 -080034 mount -t 9p 10.10.1.2 /mnt/9
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070035
36For Plan 9 From User Space applications (http://swtch.com/plan9)
37
Eric Van Hensbergena80d9232007-10-17 14:31:07 -050038 mount -t 9p `namespace`/acme /mnt/9 -o trans=unix,uname=$USER
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070039
Sripathi Kodi9208d242010-03-18 08:01:33 +000040For server running on QEMU host with virtio transport:
41
42 mount -t 9p -o trans=virtio <mount_tag> /mnt/9
43
44where mount_tag is the tag associated by the server to each of the exported
45mount points. Each 9P export is seen by the client as a virtio device with an
46associated "mount_tag" property. Available mount tags can be
47seen by reading /sys/bus/virtio/drivers/9pnet_virtio/virtio<n>/mount_tag files.
48
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070049OPTIONS
50=======
51
Eric Van Hensbergena80d9232007-10-17 14:31:07 -050052 trans=name select an alternative transport. Valid options are
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070053 currently:
Eric Van Hensbergenb530cc72007-10-23 13:47:31 -050054 unix - specifying a named pipe mount point
55 tcp - specifying a normal TCP/IP connection
56 fd - used passed file descriptors for connection
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070057 (see rfdno and wfdno)
Eric Van Hensbergenb530cc72007-10-23 13:47:31 -050058 virtio - connect to the next virtio channel available
Sripathi Kodi9208d242010-03-18 08:01:33 +000059 (from QEMU with trans_virtio module)
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -050060 rdma - connect to a specified RDMA channel
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070061
Eric Van Hensbergened1f5592006-03-25 03:07:30 -080062 uname=name user name to attempt mount as on the remote server. The
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070063 server may override or ignore this value. Certain user
64 names may require authentication.
65
66 aname=name aname specifies the file tree to access when the server is
67 offering several exported file systems.
68
Matt LaPlante01dd2fb2007-10-20 01:34:40 +020069 cache=mode specifies a caching policy. By default, no caches are used.
Eric Van Hensbergene03abc02007-02-11 13:21:39 -060070 loose = no attempts are made at consistency,
71 intended for exclusive, read-only mounts
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -050072 fscache = use FS-Cache for a persistent, read-only
73 cache backend.
Eric Van Hensbergene03abc02007-02-11 13:21:39 -060074
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070075 debug=n specifies debug level. The debug level is a bitmask.
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -050076 0x01 = display verbose error messages
77 0x02 = developer debug (DEBUG_CURRENT)
78 0x04 = display 9p trace
79 0x08 = display VFS trace
80 0x10 = display Marshalling debug
81 0x20 = display RPC debug
82 0x40 = display transport debug
83 0x80 = display allocation debug
84 0x100 = display protocol message debug
85 0x200 = display Fid debug
86 0x400 = display packet debug
87 0x800 = display fscache tracing debug
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070088
Eric Van Hensbergena80d9232007-10-17 14:31:07 -050089 rfdno=n the file descriptor for reading with trans=fd
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070090
Eric Van Hensbergena80d9232007-10-17 14:31:07 -050091 wfdno=n the file descriptor for writing with trans=fd
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070092
Eric Van Hensbergened1f5592006-03-25 03:07:30 -080093 maxdata=n the number of bytes to use for 9p packet payload (msize)
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -070094
95 port=n port to connect to on the remote server
96
Sripathi Kodi9208d242010-03-18 08:01:33 +000097 noextend force legacy mode (no 9p2000.u or 9p2000.L semantics)
98
99 version=name Select 9P protocol version. Valid options are:
100 9p2000 - Legacy mode (same as noextend)
101 9p2000.u - Use 9P2000.u protocol
102 9p2000.L - Use 9P2000.L protocol
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -0700103
Latchesar Ionkovbd32b822007-10-17 14:31:07 -0500104 dfltuid attempt to mount as a particular uid
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -0700105
Latchesar Ionkovbd32b822007-10-17 14:31:07 -0500106 dfltgid attempt to mount with a particular gid
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -0700107
108 afid security channel - used by Plan 9 authentication protocols
109
110 nodevmap do not map special files - represent them as normal files.
111 This can be used to share devices/named pipes/sockets between
112 hosts. This functionality will be expanded in later versions.
113
Latchesar Ionkovba176742007-10-17 14:31:07 -0500114 access there are three access modes.
115 user = if a user tries to access a file on v9fs
116 filesystem for the first time, v9fs sends an
117 attach command (Tattach) for that user.
118 This is the default mode.
119 <uid> = allows only user with uid=<uid> to access
120 the files on the mounted filesystem
121 any = v9fs does single attach and performs all
122 operations as one user
123
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -0500124 cachetag cache tag to use the specified persistent cache.
125 cache tags for existing cache sessions can be listed at
126 /sys/fs/9p/caches. (applies only to cache=fscache)
127
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -0700128RESOURCES
129=========
130
Eric Van Hensbergenff76e1d2007-01-26 00:57:05 -0800131Our current recommendation is to use Inferno (http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno)
132as the 9p server. You can start a 9p server under Inferno by issuing the
133following command:
134 ; styxlisten -A tcp!*!564 export '#U*'
135
136The -A specifies an unauthenticated export. The 564 is the port # (you may
137have to choose a higher port number if running as a normal user). The '#U*'
138specifies exporting the root of the Linux name space. You may specify a
139subset of the namespace by extending the path: '#U*'/tmp would just export
140/tmp. For more information, see the Inferno manual pages covering styxlisten
141and export.
142
143A Linux version of the 9p server is now maintained under the npfs project
Eric Van Hensbergen27a2a5f2007-07-23 13:06:13 -0500144on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/npfs). The currently
145maintained version is the single-threaded version of the server (named spfs)
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -0500146available from the same SVN repository.
Eric Van Hensbergene1c92112006-02-20 18:28:05 -0800147
148There are user and developer mailing lists available through the v9fs project
149on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/v9fs).
150
Eric Van Hensbergen7815f4b2009-08-17 16:49:44 -0500151A stand-alone version of the module (which should build for any 2.6 kernel)
152is available via (http://github.com/ericvh/9p-sac/tree/master)
153
Abhishek Kulkarnif4edeeb2009-09-22 11:34:04 -0500154News and other information is maintained on SWiK (http://swik.net/v9fs)
155and the Wiki (http://sf.net/apps/mediawiki/v9fs/index.php).
Eric Van Hensbergene1c92112006-02-20 18:28:05 -0800156
157Bug reports may be issued through the kernel.org bugzilla
158(http://bugzilla.kernel.org)
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -0700159
160For more information on the Plan 9 Operating System check out
161http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
162
163For information on Plan 9 from User Space (Plan 9 applications and libraries
164ported to Linux/BSD/OSX/etc) check out http://swtch.com/plan9
165
166
167STATUS
168======
169
170The 2.6 kernel support is working on PPC and x86.
171
Eric Van Hensbergenff76e1d2007-01-26 00:57:05 -0800172PLEASE USE THE KERNEL BUGZILLA TO REPORT PROBLEMS. (http://bugzilla.kernel.org)
Eric Van Hensbergen93fa58c2005-09-09 13:04:18 -0700173