From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265660AbUAGW1Y (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:27:24 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265661AbUAGW1X (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:27:23 -0500 Received: from tmr-02.dsl.thebiz.net ([216.238.38.204]:27660 "EHLO gatekeeper.tmr.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265660AbUAGW1R (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:27:17 -0500 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Path: gatekeeper.tmr.com!davidsen From: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) Newsgroups: mail.linux-kernel Subject: Re: [NEW FEATURE]Partitions on loop device for 2.6 Date: 7 Jan 2004 22:15:12 GMT Organization: TMR Associates, Schenectady NY Message-ID: References: <200312241341.23523.blaisorblade_spam@yahoo.it> <3FF5DCE8.4020008@tmr.com> <200401031905.42584.blaisorblade_spam@yahoo.it> X-Trace: gatekeeper.tmr.com 1073513712 7524 192.168.12.62 (7 Jan 2004 22:15:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@tmr.com Originator: davidsen@gatekeeper.tmr.com Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In article <200401031905.42584.blaisorblade_spam@yahoo.it>, BlaisorBlade wrote: | Alle 22:04, venerd́ 2 gennaio 2004, Bill Davidsen ha scritto: | > BlaisorBlade wrote: | > > NEED: | > > I have the need to loop mount files containing not plain filesystems, but | > > whole disk images. | > > | > > This is especially needed when using User-mode-linux, since to run any | > > distro installer you must partition the virtual disks(and on the host, | > > the backing file of the disk contains a partition table). | > > | > > Currently this could be done by specifying a positive offset, but letting | > > the kernel partition code handle this is better, isn't it? Would you ever | > > accept this feature into stock kernel? | > | > UML is on my list of things to learn (as opposed to "try casually and | > ignore") | It is something a bit like VMWare. But instead of emulating hardware and | running an OS inside that, you run a patched Linux kernel that runs as an | userspace process on the host and provides a virtual machine, which must | access a virtual disk, which is stored on a file. | See http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/ for more info. As noted, I tried it casually, got a kernel to boot and run, and decided it wasn't a solution to problems I had at the time. | > but have you considered using NBD? | I didn't really know what it was, nor it seems useful for this "as is" (I've | not really checked). Maybe that sentence means that the server program could | do the partition parsing? NBD = network block device This allows a user-space program to publish a file which a kernel with nbd enabled can mount as a device. So you should be able to run fdisk and partition it, load stuff on it, and generally treat it like a drive. Take a look at Documentation/nbd.txt, it may be exactly what you want to provide a "block device" which can be on the same system using the loopback interface. -- bill davidsen CTO, TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.