nbd-server

NAME

/etc/nbd-server/config - configuration file for nbd-server

SYNOPSIS

/etc/nbd-server/config

DESCRIPTION

/etc/nbd-server/config allows to configure the nbd-server.
The default configuration file is /etc/nbd-server/config, but this can be varied with the -C option to nbd-server(1).
The configuration file consists of section header lines, comment lines, and option lines.
A section header is a unique name that is enclosed in square brackets ("[" and "]"). A section header denotes the beginning of a section; a section continues until the next section or the end of the file, whichever is first. The first section in the configuration file must be called generic, and is used for global options that apply to more than one export. This section must always be present, even if it holds no options. Every other section defines one export; the names of these sections are not important, except that you should take care to make sure that each section name is unique (future versions of nbd-server may use the section name to refer to an export)
A comment line is a line that starts with optional whitespace, followed by a pound sign ("#"), and continues until the end of the line. Comments may not be used on option lines or section header lines.
An option line is a line that starts with an option name, followed by an equals sign ("="), followed by the option value. An option can be of type string, of type integer, or of type boolean. The value of a boolean option can be denoted with either true or false (so not yes, no, on, off, 1, or 0); all booleans default to false unless specified otherwise; no value may be quoted (always enter it directly); for a string option, leading whitespace is stripped (but trailing whitespace is not).

OPTIONS FOR SECTION [GENERIC]

group
Optional; string. The name of the group this server must run as. If this parameter is not specified, then nbd-server will not attempt to change its GID (so the GID it runs as will be the primary group of the user who starts nbd-server). If it is specified, then nbd-server will change its GID after opening ports, but before accepting connections or opening files.
user
Optional; string. The name of the user this server must run as. If this parameter is not specified, then nbd-server will not attempt to change its UID (so the UID it runs as will be the user who starts nbd-server). If it is specified, then nbd-server will change its UID after opening ports, but before accepting connections or opening files.

OPTIONS FOR EXPORT SECTIONS

authfile
Optional; string; default /etc/nbd-server/allow. The name of the authorization file for this export. This file should contain one line per IP-address, or per network (which must be specified in CIDR-style network/masklen) and must not contain empty lines. If the file does not exist, everyone is allowed to connect. If the file exists but is empty, nobody is allowed to connect. Otherwise, nbd-server will only allow clients to connect whose IP-adres is listed in this file. Corresponds to the -l option on the command line
autoreadonly
Optional; boolean. If this option is set to true, then nbd-server will automatically switch to readonly if it cannot write to the file. Does not have a corresponding command-line argument TODO: verify whether this option actually works as documented. I have a feeling I've been terribly stupid.
copyonwrite
Optional; boolean. Whether this is a copy-on-write export. If it is, then any writes to this export will not be written to the master file, but to a separate file which will be removed upon disconnect. The result of using this option is that nbd-server will be slower, and that any writes will be lost upon disconnect. Corresponds to the -c option on the command line
exportname
Required; string. The name of the file that will be exported. This must be a fully-qualified path and filename; relative paths are not allowed. Note that nbd-server will only try to find and open the exported file when a client actually connects; as a result, nbd-server must be able to open and read this file after changing to the user and group that have been specified by use of the user and group options; also, nbd-server will only detect errors in this option upon connection of a client. When specified on the command line, this should be the second argument.
filesize
Optional; integer; default autodetected. Disable autodetection of file or block device size, and forcibly specify a size. Sizes must be specified in bytes. If the multifile option is in effect, this option specifies the size of the entire export, not of individual files. When specified on the command line, this should be the third argument.
multifile
Optional; boolean. If this option is set to true, then nbd-server will search for files of the form exportname.integer, with exportname being the filename that would otherwise have been used (after name transformation for virtualization, if any, has been performed) and integer an integer number, starting with 0 and ending when no more files can be found. The size of the individual files will be autodetected, even if the filesize option has been specified. See the documentation for the multifile for details. Corresponds to the -m option on the command line.
port
Required; integer. The port on which this export is to be served. Currently it is not possible to export multiple block devices on the same port unless virtualization is used; future versions of nbd-server may add this functionality. When specified on the command line, this should be the first argument.
readonly
Optional; boolean. Disallow writes to the device. If this option is specified, nbd-server will issue an error to any client that tries to write to the device. Use of this option in conjunction with copyonwrite is possible, but silly. Corresponds to the -r option on the command line.
sparse_cow
Optional; boolean. When this option is enabled, nbd-server will use sparse files to implement the copy-on-write option; such files take up less space then they appear to, which allows nbd-server to handle the file as if it was just as large as the block device it's for. If this option is disabled, nbd-server will map every newly written block to the end of the copy-on-write file, which means that nbd-server will have to lseek(2) to the right position after every 4096-byte block. Using this option may be faster when much is being written during a connection.
timeout
Optional; integer; default 0 How many seconds a connection may be idle for this export. When a connection is idle for a longer time, nbd-server will forcibly disconnect the connection. If you specify 0 (the default), then a connection may be idle forever. Corresponds to the -a option on the command line
virtstyle
Optional; string; default "ipliteral" Defines the style of virtualization. Virtualization allows one to create one export that will serve a different file depending on the IP address that is connecting. When virtualization is There are three types of virtualization that nbd-server supports:
none
No virtualization. Will attempt to open the filename as it was written, even if it contains '%s' in the name.
ipliteral
nbd-server will look for the literal string '%s' in the exportname, and replace it by the IP address of the connecting host in dotted-quad notation. The string that results from this transformation will be used as an absolute pathname that nbd-server will attempt to open. As an example, if a client connects from 192.168.1.100 and exportname is specified as /export/%s, then nbd-server will attempt to serve /export/192.168.1.100
iphash
Same as above, except that nbd-server will replace the dots in the IP address by forward slashes ('/'); in the same example, nbd-server would open /export/192/168/1/100 instead.
cidrhash
This option requires one to add a space and a number after it. nbd-server will use the number as a network mask in CIDR style, and use that as a hash cutoff point. In the above example, if virtstyle has been specified as cidrhash 16, then nbd-server will try to open /export/192.168.0.0/192.168.1.100; if virtstyle were specified as cidrhash 26, then nbd-server will try to open /export/192.168.1.64/192.168.1.100.

SEE ALSO

nbd-server (1), nbd-client (8), http://nbd.sourceforge.net/roadmap.html

AUTHOR

The NBD kernel module and the NBD tools were originally written by Pavel Machek (pavel@ucw.cz)
The Linux kernel module is now maintained by Paul Clements (Paul.Clements@steeleye.com), while the userland tools are maintained by Wouter Verhelst (<wouter@debian.org>)
On The Hurd there is a regular translator available to perform the client side of the protocol, and the use of nbd-client is not required. Please see the relevant documentation for more information.
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.

EXAMPLES

A simple nbd-server configuration file would look like this:
      [generic]
      [export]
          exportname = /export/blkdev
          port = 12345
    
For increased security, one might want to create an authorization file, and set the UID and GID to run as:
      [generic]
          user = nbd
          group = nbd
      [export]
          exportname = /export/blkdev
          port = 12345
          authfile = /etc/nbd-server/allow
    
With /etc/nbd-server/allow containing the following:
      127.0.0.1
      192.168.0.0/8
      192.168.1.1