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6 .TH "NBD-CLIENT" "8" "30 januari 2007" "" ""
9 nbd-client \- connect to a server running nbd-server(1), to use its exported block device
12 \fBnbd-client\fR [ \fBbs=\fIblocksize\fB\fR ] \fB\fIhost\fB\fR \fB\fIport\fB\fR \fB\fInbd-device\fB\fR [ \fB-swap\fR ]
15 \fBnbd-client\fR \fB-d \fInbd-device\fB\fR
19 With \fBnbd-client\fR, you can connect to a
20 server running \fBnbd-server\fR, thus using raw
21 diskspace from that server as a blockdevice on the local
24 To do this, support from the Linux Kernel is necessary, in
25 the form of the Network Block Device (NBD). When you have that,
26 either in the kernel, or as a module, you can connect to an NBD
27 server and use its exported file through a block special file with
31 The following options are supported:
33 \fBbs=\fIblocksize\fB\fR
34 Use a blocksize of "blocksize". Default is 1024;
35 allowed values are either 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096
38 The hostname of the machine running
42 The TCP port on which \fBnbd-server\fR is
43 running at the server.
46 The block special file this nbd-client should connect
50 Specifies that this NBD device will be used as
51 swapspace. If you intend to do that, please use this
52 option to prevent deadlocks. You'll need a special kernel
53 patch, available at NBD's homepage:
54 http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel
57 Some examples of nbd-client usage:
60 To connect to a server running on port 2000 at host
61 "server.domain.com", using the client's block special file
64 \fBnbd-client server.domain.com 2000
68 To connect to a server running on port 2001 at host
69 "swapserver.domain.com", using the client's block special
70 file "/dev/nb1", for swap purposes:
72 \fBnbd-client swapserver.domain.com 2001 /dev/nb1
76 To disconnect the above connection again (after making
77 sure the block special file is not in use anymore):
79 \fBnbd-client -d /dev/nb1\fR
85 The NBD kernel module and the NBD tools have been written by
86 Pavel Macheck (pavel@ucw.cz).
88 The kernel module is now maintained by Paul Clements
89 (Paul.Clements@steeleye.com), while the userland tools are maintained by
90 Wouter Verhelst (wouter@debian.org)
92 This manual page was written by Wouter Verhelst (<wouter@debian.org>) for
93 the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). Permission is
94 granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the
95 terms of the GNU General Public License,
96 version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.