Re: Idea wanted; block disk on network (SC101T)

[Christoph Egger <Christoph_Egger%gmx.de@localhost>]

Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:54:11 -0400
> "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:21:13 +0900
> > "Toru Nishimura" <locore64%alkyltechnology.com@localhost> wrote:
> >
> > > Guys, who are a type of curiosity loving,
> > >
> > > I'm toy'ing an idea to have filesys on cheap SAN devices.  The
> > > block block is Netgear SC101T and/or Zetera NBOD.  (Yes,
> > > I'm aware of what OS insides in them;  grab the firmware and
> > > run strings on them).  Although the UDP-SAN wire protocol is
> > > not disclosed (yet), Linux camp already has a working program
> > > to use SC101 SAN as "network block device." I think it's _kool_
> > > and want to practice the NetBSD way.  My Q is;
> > >
> > > Q. how can I build block IO device driver "plumb'ing" UDP-SAN
> > > data pipe?  I assume puffs/refuse would be more/less useful
> > > naively.
> > Sounds like Sun's ND (Network Disk) protocol, from before NFS was
> > usable for the root partition...
> Following up my own post -- see ndbootd(8).  You need the client, too,
> but it might be a good reference.

Can we extend this to allow block transfers over tun/tap ?
That is useful to get Linux' blktap on NetBSD (and is used for Xen
to launch guests from non-plain file images).

Christoph