freebsd/usr.sbin/vnconfig/vnconfig.8

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.\"     @(#)vnconfig.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd July 8, 1993
.Dt VNCONFIG 8
.Os BSD 4
.Sh NAME
.Nm vnconfig
.Nd configure and enable vnode disks
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm vnconfig
.Op Fl cdeguv
.Op Fl s Ar option[,option...]
.Op Fl r Ar option[,option...]
.Op Fl S Ar value
.Ar special_file Ar [regular_file]
.Op Ar feature
.Nm vnconfig
.Fl a 
.Op Fl cdeguv
.Op Fl s Ar option
.Op Fl r Ar option
.Op Fl f Ar config_file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
command configures and enables vnode pseudo disk devices.
The first form of the command will associate the special file 
.Ar special_file
with the regular file
.Ar regular_file
allowing the latter to be accessed as though it were a disk.
Hence a regular file within the filesystem can be used for swapping
or can contain a filesystem that is mounted in the name space.  If you
want to use swap backing store for your device instead of a file, you
can leave regular_file out and specify the size of the block device
with the -S option.
.Pp
Options indicate an action to be performed:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl a
Read a command file and performs the
specified actions for each device/file pair.
.It Fl c
Configure the device.
If successful, references to
.Ar special_file
will access the contents of
.Ar regular_file .
.It Fl d
Disable (if possible) the specified feature.
.It Fl e
Configure the device and enables any
.Ar feature
that was specified.
If no feature was specified,
.Fl e
is the same as
.Fl c .
.It Fl f Ar config_file
Use
.Ar config_file
as an alternate config file.
.It Fl g
Fiddle global options. 
.It Fl r Ar flag
Reset
.Ar flag .
The list of allowed flags and their meanings are:
.Bl -tag -width "follow"
.It Ar labels 
use disk/slice labels.
.It Ar reserve 
Pre-reserve the blocks underlying the file or swap backing store.  Currently only
works for swap backing store.  This option also disables on-the-fly freeing of 
the underlying backing store (for example, when you remove a large file). 
Use this option if you wish to avoid long-term fragmentation of the backing
store.  Also note that when this option is used, the initial contents of the
backing store may contain garbage rather then zeros.  It may even be possible to
recover the prior contents of a swap-backed VN across a reboot if the VN device
is configured before any swap is allocated by the system.
.It Ar follow 
debug flow in the 
.Xr vn 4
driver.
.It Ar debug 
debug data in the
.Xr vn 4
driver.
.It Ar io 
debug I/O in the
.Xr vn 4
driver.
.It Ar all 
turn on all flags.
.It Ar none
turn off all flags.
.El
.It Fl s Ar flag
Set
.Ar flag .
The list of allowed flags and their meanings are the same as for the
.Fl r
option.
.It Fl S Ar value{k,m,g,t}
If no regular file is specified, VN will use swap for backing store.
This option specifies the size of the device.  For example, '23m' for
23 megabytes.  The VN device will round the size up to a machine page boundary.
Filesystems up to 7.9 terrabytes are supported.  When specified along with
a regular file, this option overrides the regular file's size insofar as
VN is concerned.
.It Fl T
When a regular file is specified, VN will ftruncate() the file to 0 first.
Normally you should also specify the -S option to set the size of the file.
This option also creates the file if it did not previously exist.
This option is only meaningful if the -S option has been specified.
.It Fl Z
When a regular file is specified, VN will zero the contents of the file to
ensure that all blocks have been allocated by the filesystem.  This option is
only meaningful if the -S option has been specified.
.It Fl u
Disable and ``unconfigure'' the device.
.It Fl v
Print messages to stdout describing actions taken.
.El
.Pp
If no action option is given,
.Fl c
is assumed.
.Pp
The
.Ar feature
argument specifies a feature that can be enabled via the
.Fl e
option:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Dv swap
Swapping is enabled on the special file.
See
.Xr swapon 2 .
.It Dv Pf mountro= Pa mount_point
The special file is mounted read-only on
.Ar mount_point .
See
.Xr mount 2 .
.It Dv Pf mountrw= Pa mount_point
The special file is mounted read-write on
.Ar mount_point .
See
.Xr mount 2 .
.It Dv Pf mount= Pa mount_point
Same as ``mountrw=''.
.El
.Pp
A configuration file contains one line per device/file pair in the form:
.Bd -literal
	special_file	regular_file	[ feature ]
.Ed
.Pp
where fields are separated by white space.
The previously described action options serve to configure, enable,
disable or unconfigure all devices in the configuration file.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /etc/vntab -compact
.It Pa /etc/vntab
default configuration file for
.Fl a
option
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
.Pp
.Dl vnconfig vn0c /tmp/diskimage
.Pp
Configures the vnode disk
.Pa vn0c .
.Pp
.Dl vnconfig -e vn0c /var/swapfile swap
.Pp
Configures
.Pa vn0c
and enables swapping on it.
.Pp
.Dl vnconfig -d vn0c myfilesystem mount=/mnt
.Pp
Unmounts (disables)
.Pa vn0c .
.Pp
.Dl vnconfig -ae
.Pp
Configures and enables all devices specified in
.Pa /etc/vntab .
.Pp
.Dl vnconfig -s labels -c vn0 somebackingfile
.Dl disklabel -r -w vn0 auto
.Dl disklabel -e vn0
.Pp
Is an example of how to configure a file-backed VN disk with a disk label 
and to initialize and then edit the label.  Once you create the label, you
can partition your VN disk and, for example, create a filesystem on one of
the partitions.  If you are using a file as backing store, it may be possible
to recover your VN disk after a crash by vnconfig'ing the same file again
and using the VN configuration already stored in the file rather then 
relabeling and recreating the filesystem.  It is even possible to fsck the
VN partitions that previously contained filesystems.
.Pp
.Dl vnconfig -e -s labels,reserve -S 400m vn1
.Dl disklabel -r -w vn1 auto
.Dl newfs /dev/vn1c
.Dl mount /dev/vn1c /usr/obj
.Pp
Is an example of a swap-backed VN disk configuration.  This example assumes
that you have at least 400 megabytes of swap free (and hopefully much more).
The swap space is pre-reserved in order to maintain maximum performance.
We then label the disk, newfs it, and mount it as /usr/obj.  Swap-backed VN
devices are recoverable after a crash if you (A) use the reserve flag, and if
(B) the same swap is reserved as was the last time, meaning that such 
vnconfig's would have to be run in your rc.local.  In general, though, you
only use swap-backed VN devices to hold information you don't mind losing
on every reboot.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mount 2 ,
.Xr swapon 2 ,
.Xr unmount 2 ,
.Xr vn 4