NAME¶

nbdsh - network block device (NBD) shell

SYNOPSIS¶

 $ nbdsh
 
 Welcome to nbdsh, the shell for interacting with
 Network Block Device (NBD) servers.
 
 The ‘nbd’ module has already been imported and there
 is an open NBD handle called ‘h’.
 
 nbd> h.connect_command(["nbdkit", "-s", "memory", "1G"])
 nbd> h.get_size()
 1073741824
 nbd> buf = b"hello, world"
 nbd> h.pwrite(buf, 0, 0)
 nbd> exit()

DESCRIPTION¶

nbdsh is a Python-based client shell for accessing Network Block Device (NBD) servers.

For documentation about the libnbd API please open the shell and type:

 help(nbd)

EXAMPLES¶

 $ nbdsh -u nbd://localhost -c 'print(h.get_size())'
 1073741824

 nbdsh -c - <<'EOF'
 from subprocess import *
 
 h.connect_uri("nbd://localhost")
 bootsect = h.pread(512, 0)
 p = Popen("hexdump -C", shell=True, stdin=PIPE)
 p.stdin.write(bootsect)
 EOF

OPTIONS¶

-h

--help

Display brief command line help and exit.

--base-allocation

Request the use of the "base:allocation" meta context, which is the most common context used with nbd_block_status(3). This is equivalent to calling "h.set_meta_context(nbd.CONTEXT_BASE_ALLOCATION)" in the shell prior to connecting, and works even when combined with "--uri" (while attempting the same with "-c" would be too late).

-c 'COMMAND ...'

--command 'COMMAND ...'

Instead of starting an interactive shell, run a command. This option can be specified multiple times in order to run multiple commands.

--opt-mode

Request that option mode be enabled, which gives fine-grained control over option negotiation after initially contacting the server but prior to actually using the export. This is equivalent to calling "h.set_opt_mode(True)" in the shell prior to connecting, and works even when combined with "--uri" (while attempting the same with "-c" would be too late).

-c -

--command -

Read standard input and execute it as a command.

-u URI

-uri URI

--connect URI

Connect to the given NBD URI. This is equivalent to the "h.connect_uri(URI)" command in the shell.

Note that the connection is created prior to processing any "-c" commands, which prevents the use of configuration commands such as "h.add_meta_context("NAME")" from the command line when mixed with this option. The options "--opt-mode" and "--base-allocation" can be used to make this situation easier to manage.

-V

--version

Display the package name and version and exit.

SEE ALSO¶

libnbd(3), libnbd-security(3), nbdcopy(1), nbdfuse(1), nbdinfo(1), qemu-img(1).

AUTHORS¶

Richard W.M. Jones

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright (C) 2019-2020 Red Hat Inc.

LICENSE¶

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA