harvey/sys/man/4/u9fs

.TH U9FS 4
.SH NAME
u9fs \- serve 9P from Unix
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B u9fs
[
.B -Dnz
]
[
.B -a
.I authtype
]
[
.B -A
.I autharg
]
[
.B -l
.I logfile
]
[
.B -m
.I msize
]
[
.B -u
.I onlyuser
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I U9fs
is
.I not
a Plan 9 program.  Instead it is a program that 
serves Unix files to Plan 9 machines using the 9P protocol
(see
.IR intro (5)).
It is typically invoked on a
Unix machine by
.B inetd
with its standard input and output connected to a
network connection, typically TCP on an Ethernet.
It typically runs as user
.B root
and multiplexes access to multiple Plan 9 clients over the single wire.
It assumes Plan 9 uids match Unix login names,
and changes to the corresponding Unix effective uid when processing requests.
.I U9fs
serves both 9P1 (the 9P protocol as used by
the second and third editions of Plan 9) and 9P2000.
.PP
The options are:
.TP
.B -D
Write very chatty debugging output to the log file (see 
.B -l 
option below).
.TP
.B -n
Signals that 
.I u9fs
is 
.I not
being invoked with a network connection
on standard input and output, and thus should
not try to determine the remote address of the connection.
This is useful when 
.I u9fs
is not invoked from
.I inetd
(see examples below).
.TP
.B -z
Truncate the log file on startup.  This is useful mainly when debugging
with 
.BR -D .
.TP
.BI -a " authtype
Sets the authentication method to be used.
.I Authtype
should be
.BR rhosts ,
.BR none ,
or
.BR p9any .
The default is
.BR rhosts ,
which uses the
.I ruserok 
library call to authenticate users by entries in
.B /etc/hosts.equiv
or
.BR $HOME/.rhosts .
This default is discouraged for all but the most controlled networks.
Specifying 
.B none
turns off authentication altogether.
This is useful when 
.I u9fs
is not invoked from
.I inetd
(see examples below, or
.I srvssh
in .IR srv (4)).
Specifying
.B p9any
uses the fourth edition Plan 9 authentication mechanisms.
The file 
.BR /etc/u9fs.key ,
or
.I autharg
if specified
(see the
.B -A
option),
is consulted for the authentication data.
The file must contain exactly three lines:
the plaintext password, the user id, and
the authentication domain.
.TP
.BI -A " autharg
Used to specify an argument to the authentication method.
See the authentication descriptions above.
.TP
.BI -l " logfile
Specifies the file which should contain debugging output
and other messages.
The out-of-the-box compile-time default is
.BR /tmp/u9fs.log .
.TP
.BI -m " msize
Set 
.I msize
for 9P2000
(see
.IR open (5)).
.TP
.BI -u " user
Treat all attaches as coming from 
.IR user .
This is useful in some cases when running without
.IR inetd ;
see the examples.
.SH
EXAMPLES
.PP
Plan 9 calls 9P file service
.B 9fs
with TCP port number 564.
Set up this way on a machine called, say,
.BR kremvax ,
.I u9fs
may be connected to the name space of a Plan 9 process by
.IP
.EX
9fs kremvax
.EE
.PP
For more information on this procedure, see
.IR srv (4)
and
.IR bind (1).
.PP
.I U9fs
serves the entire file system of the Unix machine.
It forbids access to devices
because the program is single-threaded and may block unpredictably.
Using the
.B attach
specifier
.B device
connects to a file system identical to the usual system except
it only permits device access (and may block unpredictably):
.IP
.EX
srv tcp!kremvax!9fs
mount -c /srv/tcp!kremvax!9fs /n/kremvax device
.EE
.PP
(The
.B 9fs
command
does not accept an attach specifier.)
Even so,
device access may produce unpredictable
results if the block size of the device is greater than 8192,
the maximum data size of a 9P message.
.PP
The source to
.I u9fs
is in the Plan 9 directory
.BR /sys/src/cmd/unix/u9fs .
To install
.I u9fs
on a Unix system with an ANSI C compiler, copy the source to a directory on that system
and run
.BR make .
Then install the binary in
.BR /usr/etc/u9fs .
Add this line to
.BR inetd.conf :
.IP
.EX
9fs     stream  tcp     nowait  root   /usr/etc/u9fs   u9fs
.EE
.PP
and this to
.BR services :
.IP
.EX
9fs     564/tcp       9fs  # Plan 9 fs
.EE
.LP
Due to a bug in their
IP software, some systems will not accept the service name
.BR 9fs ,
thinking it
a service number because of the initial digit.
If so, run the service as
.B u9fs
or
.BR 564 .
.PP
On systems where listeners cannot be started,
.IR execnet (4)
is useful for running
.I u9fs
via mechanisms like
.IR ssh .
.SH SOURCE
.B /sys/src/cmd/unix/u9fs
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
Problems are reported to the
log file specified with the
.B -l 
option (default
.BR /tmp/u9fs.log ).
The
.B -D
flag enables chatty debugging.
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR bind (1),
.IR execnet (4),
.IR srv (4),
.IR ip (3),
.IR nfsserver (8)
.SH BUGS
The implementation of devices is unsatisfactory.
.LP
Semantics like remove-on-close or the
atomicity of 
.B wstat
are hard to provide exactly.