1 v9fs: Plan 9 Resource Sharing for Linux
2 =======================================
7 v9fs is a Unix implementation of the Plan 9 9p remote filesystem protocol.
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
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
19 Other applications are described in the following papers:
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
32 For remote file server:
34 mount -t 9p 10.10.1.2 /mnt/9
36 For Plan 9 From User Space applications (http://swtch.com/plan9)
38 mount -t 9p `namespace`/acme /mnt/9 -o trans=unix,uname=$USER
43 trans=name select an alternative transport. Valid options are
45 unix - specifying a named pipe mount point
46 tcp - specifying a normal TCP/IP connection
47 fd - used passed file descriptors for connection
49 virtio - connect to the next virtio channel available
50 (from lguest or KVM with trans_virtio module)
52 uname=name user name to attempt mount as on the remote server. The
53 server may override or ignore this value. Certain user
54 names may require authentication.
56 aname=name aname specifies the file tree to access when the server is
57 offering several exported file systems.
59 cache=mode specifies a caching policy. By default, no caches are used.
60 loose = no attempts are made at consistency,
61 intended for exclusive, read-only mounts
63 debug=n specifies debug level. The debug level is a bitmask.
64 0x01 = display verbose error messages
65 0x02 = developer debug (DEBUG_CURRENT)
66 0x04 = display 9p trace
67 0x08 = display VFS trace
68 0x10 = display Marshalling debug
69 0x20 = display RPC debug
70 0x40 = display transport debug
71 0x80 = display allocation debug
73 rfdno=n the file descriptor for reading with trans=fd
75 wfdno=n the file descriptor for writing with trans=fd
77 maxdata=n the number of bytes to use for 9p packet payload (msize)
79 port=n port to connect to on the remote server
81 noextend force legacy mode (no 9p2000.u semantics)
83 dfltuid attempt to mount as a particular uid
85 dfltgid attempt to mount with a particular gid
87 afid security channel - used by Plan 9 authentication protocols
89 nodevmap do not map special files - represent them as normal files.
90 This can be used to share devices/named pipes/sockets between
91 hosts. This functionality will be expanded in later versions.
93 access there are three access modes.
94 user = if a user tries to access a file on v9fs
95 filesystem for the first time, v9fs sends an
96 attach command (Tattach) for that user.
97 This is the default mode.
98 <uid> = allows only user with uid=<uid> to access
99 the files on the mounted filesystem
100 any = v9fs does single attach and performs all
101 operations as one user
106 Our current recommendation is to use Inferno (http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno)
107 as the 9p server. You can start a 9p server under Inferno by issuing the
109 ; styxlisten -A tcp!*!564 export '#U*'
111 The -A specifies an unauthenticated export. The 564 is the port # (you may
112 have to choose a higher port number if running as a normal user). The '#U*'
113 specifies exporting the root of the Linux name space. You may specify a
114 subset of the namespace by extending the path: '#U*'/tmp would just export
115 /tmp. For more information, see the Inferno manual pages covering styxlisten
118 A Linux version of the 9p server is now maintained under the npfs project
119 on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/npfs). The currently
120 maintained version is the single-threaded version of the server (named spfs)
121 available from the same CVS repository.
123 There are user and developer mailing lists available through the v9fs project
124 on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/v9fs).
126 News and other information is maintained on SWiK (http://swik.net/v9fs).
128 Bug reports may be issued through the kernel.org bugzilla
129 (http://bugzilla.kernel.org)
131 For more information on the Plan 9 Operating System check out
132 http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
134 For information on Plan 9 from User Space (Plan 9 applications and libraries
135 ported to Linux/BSD/OSX/etc) check out http://swtch.com/plan9
141 The 2.6 kernel support is working on PPC and x86.
143 PLEASE USE THE KERNEL BUGZILLA TO REPORT PROBLEMS. (http://bugzilla.kernel.org)