NAME¶
nbd-client - connect to a server running
nbd-server(1), to use its exported
block device
SYNOPSIS¶
nbd-client host [
port ]
nbd-device [
-sdp ] [
-swap ] [
-persist ] [
-nofork ] [
-systemd-mark ] [
-block-size
block size ] [
-timeout seconds ] [
-name name ]
nbd-client -d nbd-device
nbd-client -c nbd-device
nbd-client -l host [
port ]
DESCRIPTION¶
With
nbd-client, you can connect to a server running
nbd-server,
thus using raw diskspace from that server as a blockdevice on the local
client.
To do this, support from the Linux Kernel is necessary, in the form of the
Network Block Device (NBD). When you have that, either in the kernel, or as a
module, you can connect to an NBD server and use its exported file through a
block special file with major mode 43.
Optionally, long options can also be specified with two leading dashes.
OPTIONS¶
The following options are supported:
- -block-size block size
- -b
- Use a blocksize of "block size". Default is 1024; allowed values
are either 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096
- host
- The hostname or IP address of the machine running nbd-server. Since
2.9.15, the NBD utilities support IPv6.
- -timeout seconds
- -t
- Set the connection timeout to "seconds". For this to work, you
need a kernel with support for the NBD_SET_TIMEOUT ioctl; this was
introduced into Linus' tree on 2007-10-11, and will be part of kernel
2.6.24.
- port
- The TCP port on which nbd-server is running at the server.
For the deprecated oldstyle protocol, passing a port number is required. In
the oldstyle protocol, exports are defined by the port on which they are
running.
For the newstyle protocol, the port number defaults to 10809, the
IANA-assigned port number for the NBD protocol. The newstyle protocol is
selected automatically by nbd-client when one of the -list or -name
options are used.
- nbd-device
- The block special file this nbd-client should connect to.
- -check
- -c
- Check whether the specified nbd device is connected.
If the device is connected, nbd-client will exit with an exit state of 0 and
print the PID of the nbd-client instance that connected it to stdout.
If the device is not connected or does not exist (for example because the
nbd module was not loaded), nbd-client will exit with an exit state of 1
and not print anything on stdout.
If an error occurred, nbd-client will exit with an exit state of 2, and not
print anything on stdout either.
- -disconnect
- -d
- Disconnect the specified nbd device from the server
- -list
- -l
- Ask the server for a list of available exports. If the server is exporting
over IPv6 as well as over IPv4, this will list all exports twice;
otherwise, it should list them all only once.
Note that this option only works with nbd-server processes running version
3.1 or above, and must be enabled in server configuration (with the
"allowlist" option) before it can be used.
- -persist
- -p
- When this option is specified, nbd-client will immediately try to
reconnect an nbd device if the connection ever drops unexpectedly due to a
lost server or something similar.
- -sdp
- -S
- Connect to the server using the Socket Direct Protocol (SDP), rather than
IP. See nbd-server(5) for details.
- -swap
- -s
- Specifies that this NBD device will be used as swapspace. This option
attempts to prevent deadlocks by performing mlockall() and adjusting the
oom-killer score at an appropriate time. It does not however guarantee
that such deadlocks can be avoided.
- -systemd-mark
- -m
- The systemd init system requires that processes which should not be killed
at shutdown time be marked appropriately by replacing the first letter of
their argv[0] with an '@' sign.
This option will cause nbd-client to do so.
Note that this only works if nbd-client is run from an initrd; i.e., systemd
will ignore such a mark if run from a systemd unit file or from the
command line.
- -nofork
- -n
- Specifies that the NBD client should not detach and daemonize itself. This
is mostly useful for debugging.
Note that nbd-client will still fork once to trigger an update to the device
node's partition table. It is not possible to disable this.
- -name
- -N
- Specifies the name of the export that we want to use. Required if the port
is not specified; changes the default port for newstyle negotiation from
10809 in the other case.
When this option is specified, nbd-client uses the newstyle version of the
negotiation protocol. This version is much more flexible than the oldstyle
negotiation, and should be used for new configurations.
EXAMPLES¶
Some examples of nbd-client usage:
- •
- To connect to a server running on port 2000 at host
"server.domain.com", using the client's block special file
"/dev/nbd0":
nbd-client server.domain.com 2000 /dev/nbd0
- •
- To connect to a server running on port 2001 at host
"swapserver.domain.com", using the client's block special file
"/dev/nbd1", for swap purposes:
nbd-client swapserver.domain.com 2001 /dev/nbd1 -swap
- •
- To disconnect the above connection again (after making sure the block
special file is not in use anymore):
nbd-client -d /dev/nbd1
SEE ALSO¶
nbd-server (1).
AUTHOR¶
The NBD kernel module and the NBD tools have been written by Pavel Macheck
(pavel@ucw.cz).
The kernel module is now maintained by Paul Clements
(Paul.Clements@steeleye.com), while the userland tools are maintained by
Wouter Verhelst (wouter@debian.org)
This manual page was written by Wouter Verhelst (<wouter@debian.org>) for
the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). Permission is granted
to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU
General Public License, version 2, as published by the Free Software
Foundation.