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13 Welcome to the NBD userland support files!
15 This
package contains nbd-server and nbd-client.
17 To install the package, do the normal `configure`/`make`/`make install`
18 dance. You'll need to install it on both the client and the server.
20 Note that released nbd tarballs are found on
23 Using NBD is quite easy. First, on the client, you need to load the
24 module and, if you're not using udev, to create the device nodes:
30 (if you need more than one NBD device, repeat the above command for nbd1,
33 Next, write a configuration file for the server. An example looks like
38 # The [generic] section is required, even if nothing is specified
40 # When either of these options are specified, nbd-server drops
41 # privileges to the given user and group after opening ports, but
42 # _before_ opening files.
45 # Since version 2.9.17, nbd-server will do exports on a name
46 # basis (the used name is the name of the section in which the
47 # export is specified). This however required an incompatible
48 # protocol change. To enable backwards-compatible port-based
49 # exports, uncomment the following line:
52 exportname = /export/nbd/export1-file
53 # The following line will be ignored unless the
54 # "oldstyle = true" line in the generic section above is
57 authfile = /export/nbd/export1-authfile
63 prerun = dd if=/dev/zero of=%s bs=1k count=500
66 exportname = /export/nbd/experiment
67 # The other options are all optional, except this one in case
68 # the oldstyle option is used in [generic]:
71 The configuration file is parsed with GLib's GKeyFile, which parses key
72 files as they are specified in the Freedesktop.org Desktop Entry
73 Specification, as can be found at
75 was not intended to be used for configuration files, the glib API is
76 flexible enough for it to be used as such.
80 nbd-server -C /path/to/configfile
82 Note that the filename must be an absolute path; i.e., something like
83 `/path/to/file`, not `../file`. See the nbd-server manpage
for details
84 on any available options.
86 Finally, you
'll be able to start the client:
88 nbd-client <hostname> -N <export name> <nbd device>
92 nbd-client 10.0.0.1 -N otherexport /dev/nbd0
94 will use the second export in the above example (the one that exports
95 `/export/nbd/experiment`)
97 `nbd-client` must be ran as root; the same is not true for nbd-server
98 (but do make sure that /var/run is writeable by the server that
99 `nbd-server` runs as; otherwise, you won't
get a PID file, though the
100 server will keep running).
102 The old command-line port-only way of exporting something is still
103 supported, but it is deprecated.
105 There are packages (or similar) available
for the following operating
108 - Debian (and derivatives, like Ubuntu): `nbd-client` and `nbd-server`,
110 - Gentoo: the `nbd` ebuild in the `sys-block` category, available in
112 - FreeBSD: `net/nbd-server`, available in the ports tree since 2003.
113 FreeBSD doesn
't have kernel support for NBD, so obviously the client
115 - SuSE: `nbd`, in SuSE 10.0
116 - Fedora: `nbd`, since Fedora 7
117 - uClibc
's `buildroot` script also seems to have support for NBD.
119 If you're packaging NBD for a different operating system that isn
't in
120 the above list, I'd like to know about it.
122 For questions, please use the `nbd-general@lists.sourceforge.net` mailinglist.