Network Block Device (TCP version) Note: Network Block Device is now experimental, which approximately means, that it works on my computer, and it worked on one of school computers. What is it: With this compiled in the kernel, Linux can use a remote server as one of its block devices. So every time the client computer wants to read /dev/nd0, it sends a request over TCP to the server, which will reply with the data read. This can be used for stations with low disk space (or even diskless - if you boot from floppy) to borrow disk space from another computer. Unlike NFS, it is possible to put any filesystem on it etc. It is impossible to use NBD as a root filesystem, since it requires a user-level program to start. It also allows you to run block-device in user land (making server and client physically the same computer, communicating using loopback). Current state: It currently works. Network block device looks like being pretty stable. I originally thought that it is impossible to swap over TCP. It turned out not to be true - swapping over TCP now works and seems to be deadlock-free, but it requires heavy patches into Linux's network layer. Devices: Network block device uses major 43, minors 0..n (where n is configurable in nbd.h). Create these files by mknod when needed. After that, your ls -l /dev/ should look like: brw-rw-rw- 1 root root 43, 0 Apr 11 00:28 nd0 brw-rw-rw- 1 root root 43, 1 Apr 11 00:28 nd1 ... Protocol: Userland program passes file handle with connected TCP socket to actual kernel driver. This way, the kernel does not have to care about connecting etc. Protocol is rather simple: If the driver is asked to read from block device, it sends packet of following form "request" (all data are in network byte order): __u32 magic; must be equal to 0x12560953 __u32 from; position in bytes to read from / write at __u32 len; number of bytes to be read / written __u64 handle; handle of operation __u32 type; 0 = read 1 = write ... in case of write operation, this is immediately followed len bytes of data When operation is completed, server responds with packet of following structure "reply": __u32 magic; must be equal to __u64 handle; handle copied from request __u32 error; 0 = operation completed successfully, else error code ... in case of read operation with no error, this is immediately followed len bytes of data For more information, look at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel.