Documentation/filesystems/9p.txt

   1                     v9fs: Plan 9 Resource Sharing for Linux
   2                     =======================================
   3
   4 ABOUT
   5 =====
   6
   7 v9fs is a Unix implementation of the Plan 9 9p remote filesystem protocol.
   8
   9 This software was originally developed by Ron Minnich <rminnich@sandia.gov>
  10 and Maya Gokhale.  Additional development by Greg Watson
  11 <gwatson@lanl.gov> and most recently Eric Van Hensbergen
  12 <ericvh@gmail.com>, Latchesar Ionkov <lucho@ionkov.net> and Russ Cox
  13 <rsc@swtch.com>.
  14
  15 The best detailed explanation of the Linux implementation and applications of
  16 the 9p client is available in the form of a USENIX paper:
  17    http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix05/tech/freenix/hensbergen.html
  18
  19 Other applications are described in the following papers:
  20         * XCPU & Clustering
  21                 http://www.xcpu.org/xcpu-talk.pdf
  22         * KVMFS: control file system for KVM
  23                 http://www.xcpu.org/kvmfs.pdf
  24         * CellFS: A New ProgrammingModel for the Cell BE
  25                 http://www.xcpu.org/cellfs-talk.pdf
  26         * PROSE I/O: Using 9p to enable Application Partitions
  27                 http://plan9.escet.urjc.es/iwp9/cready/PROSE_iwp9_2006.pdf
  28
  29 USAGE
  30 =====
  31
  32 For remote file server:
  33
  34         mount -t 9p 10.10.1.2 /mnt/9
  35
  36 For Plan 9 From User Space applications (http://swtch.com/plan9)
  37
  38         mount -t 9p `namespace`/acme /mnt/9 -o proto=unix,uname=$USER
  39
  40 OPTIONS
  41 =======
  42
  43   proto=name    select an alternative transport.  Valid options are
  44                 currently:
  45                         unix - specifying a named pipe mount point
  46                         tcp  - specifying a normal TCP/IP connection
  47                         fd   - used passed file descriptors for connection
  48                                 (see rfdno and wfdno)
  49
  50   uname=name    user name to attempt mount as on the remote server.  The
  51                 server may override or ignore this value.  Certain user
  52                 names may require authentication.
  53
  54   aname=name    aname specifies the file tree to access when the server is
  55                 offering several exported file systems.
  56
  57   cache=mode    specifies a cacheing policy.  By default, no caches are used.
  58                         loose = no attempts are made at consistency,
  59                                 intended for exclusive, read-only mounts
  60
  61   debug=n       specifies debug level.  The debug level is a bitmask.
  62                         0x01 = display verbose error messages
  63                         0x02 = developer debug (DEBUG_CURRENT)
  64                         0x04 = display 9p trace
  65                         0x08 = display VFS trace
  66                         0x10 = display Marshalling debug
  67                         0x20 = display RPC debug
  68                         0x40 = display transport debug
  69                         0x80 = display allocation debug
  70
  71   rfdno=n       the file descriptor for reading with proto=fd
  72
  73   wfdno=n       the file descriptor for writing with proto=fd
  74
  75   maxdata=n     the number of bytes to use for 9p packet payload (msize)
  76
  77   port=n        port to connect to on the remote server
  78
  79   noextend      force legacy mode (no 9p2000.u semantics)
  80
  81   uid           attempt to mount as a particular uid
  82
  83   gid           attempt to mount with a particular gid
  84
  85   afid          security channel - used by Plan 9 authentication protocols
  86
  87   nodevmap      do not map special files - represent them as normal files.
  88                 This can be used to share devices/named pipes/sockets between
  89                 hosts.  This functionality will be expanded in later versions.
  90
  91 RESOURCES
  92 =========
  93
  94 Our current recommendation is to use Inferno (http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno)
  95 as the 9p server.  You can start a 9p server under Inferno by issuing the
  96 following command:
  97    ; styxlisten -A tcp!*!564 export '#U*'
  98
  99 The -A specifies an unauthenticated export.  The 564 is the port # (you may
 100 have to choose a higher port number if running as a normal user).  The '#U*'
 101 specifies exporting the root of the Linux name space.  You may specify a
 102 subset of the namespace by extending the path: '#U*'/tmp would just export
 103 /tmp.  For more information, see the Inferno manual pages covering styxlisten
 104 and export.
 105
 106 A Linux version of the 9p server is now maintained under the npfs project
 107 on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/npfs).  The currently
 108 maintained version is the single-threaded version of the server (named spfs)
 109 available from the same CVS repository.
 110
 111 There are user and developer mailing lists available through the v9fs project
 112 on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/v9fs).
 113
 114 News and other information is maintained on SWiK (http://swik.net/v9fs).
 115
 116 Bug reports may be issued through the kernel.org bugzilla
 117 (http://bugzilla.kernel.org)
 118
 119 For more information on the Plan 9 Operating System check out
 120 http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
 121
 122 For information on Plan 9 from User Space (Plan 9 applications and libraries
 123 ported to Linux/BSD/OSX/etc) check out http://swtch.com/plan9
 124
 125
 126 STATUS
 127 ======
 128
 129 The 2.6 kernel support is working on PPC and x86.
 130
 131 PLEASE USE THE KERNEL BUGZILLA TO REPORT PROBLEMS. (http://bugzilla.kernel.org)
 132