From: Ralph Ronnquist <rrq@rrq.au>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2024 01:00:07 +0000 (+1000)
Subject: Added some project description for my gitweb.
X-Git-Tag: 0.2~2
X-Git-Url: https://git.rrq.au/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=01c9eaa041ac5c4f8d7b2705a0a45b79302203b7;p=rrq%2Fnbd-mount-helper.git

Added some project description for my gitweb.
---

diff --git a/.gitweb b/.gitweb
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+description =  mount helper for nbd and nbdfuse fstab entries
+category = goodies
diff --git a/README.adoc b/README.adoc
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+= nbd-mount-helper
+:wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_block_device
+
+This project includes mount helpers for `nbd` and `nbdfuse` entries in
+`/etc/fstab`. The helpers are `bash` scripts that should be installed
+in `/sbin` to be ued by `mount` to handle the virtual filesystem types
+`nbd` or `nbdfuse`. (Or installed in `/usr/sbin` for some versions of
+`mount`)
+
+== Description
+
+Quoting                 
+Wikipedia about
+link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_block_device[Network Block Device]
+
+[quote]
+
+On Linux, network block device (NBD) is a network protocol that can be
+used to forward a block device (typically a hard disk or partition)
+from one machine to a second machine. As an example, a local machine
+can access a hard disk drive that is attached to another computer.
+
+To do so, a remote machine, say `nbdhost.example.com` is set up as
+`NBD server` with one or more export names, say including `part000`,
+that on the server side maps to a partition image file.
+
+With a mount helper the client side would include an entry in its
+`/etc/fstab` for instance like the following:
+----
+nbd://nbdhost.example.com/part000 /nbd/1 nbd noauto,noatime 0 2
+----
+That would declare a mounting of that exported NBD partition onto the
+(alread existsing) pathname `/mnt/1` on the local machine. With the
+__type__ field of the `fstab` entry being `nbd`, the mount program
+will use `/sbin/mount.nbd` as helper for handling that entry.
+
+The helper script `/sbin/mount.nbd` provided here uses the
+`nbd-client` program to handle the service connection as device node
+such as `/dev/nbd0` and then mount that onto `/mnt/1`. The script will
+further spawn a monitor daemon to terminate the service connection
+upon unmounting. This script needs `inotify`, `nbd-client` and the
+`nbd` kernel module or built-in to function.
+
+The helper script `/sbin/mount.nbdfuse` provided here is similar but
+will rely on `nbdfuse` for service connection. The `fstab` entry would
+then have `nbdfuse` as __type__ indicator. This script needs
+`inotify`, `nbdfuse` and the `fuse` and `loop` kernel modules or
+built-in to function.
+