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://xcpu.org/papers/xcpu-talk.pdf
* KVMFS: control file system for KVM
http://xcpu.org/papers/kvmfs.pdf
* CellFS: A New Programming Model for the Cell BE
http://xcpu.org/papers/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)
rdma - connect to a specified RDMA channel
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
fscache = use FS-Cache for a persistent, read-only
cache backend.
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
0x100 = display protocol message debug
0x200 = display Fid debug
0x400 = display packet debug
0x800 = display fscache tracing 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.
the files on the mounted filesystem
any = v9fs does single attach and performs all
operations as one user
cachetag cache tag to use the specified persistent cache.
cache tags for existing cache sessions can be listed at
/sys/fs/9p/caches. (applies only to cache=fscache)
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 SVN repository.
There are user and developer mailing lists available through the v9fs project
on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/v9fs).
A stand-alone version of the module (which should build for any 2.6 kernel)
is available via (http://github.com/ericvh/9p-sac/tree/master)
News and other information is maintained on SWiK (http://swik.net/v9fs)
and the Wiki (http://sf.net/apps/mediawiki/v9fs/index.php).
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)
