Provided by: nbdkit_1.42.9-1ubuntu1_amd64 
NAME
nbdkit-client - how to mount NBD filesystems on a client machine
DESCRIPTION
For NBD exports that contain filesystems there are several approaches to mounting them on a physical
machine.
For virtual machines, see the section "ATTACHING NBD DEVICES TO A VIRTUAL MACHINE" at the end.
Easy mounting at boot time
For simple setups the following method is the easiest way to get an NBD filesystem to mount at boot.
Create or edit /etc/rc.local or /etc/rc.d/rc.local:
#!/bin/sh -
nm-online
modprobe nbd
nbd-client server /dev/nbd0
mount /dev/nbd0 /mnt
Mounting using systemd mount points
You can use systemd mount points to mount NBD filesystems at boot and/or on demand.
Set up an nbdtab(5) mapping. If /etc/nbdtab doesn't exist, then create it first. Add this line:
nbd0 server / bs=512,persist
As a workaround for https://github.com/NetworkBlockDevice/nbd/issues/91 you must currently modify the
nbd@.service file:
# cp /usr/lib/systemd/system/nbd@.service /etc/systemd/system/
# vi /etc/systemd/system/nbd@.service
and edit or create these settings in the "[Service]" section:
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nbd-client %i
ExecStop=/usr/sbin/nbd-client -d /dev/%i
Finally create a systemd mount file called /etc/systemd/system/mnt.mount:
[Unit]
Requires=nbd@nbd0.service
[Mount]
What=/dev/nbd0
Where=/mnt
Type=ext4
You can either reboot now or do:
# systemctl start mnt.mount
Other systemd services which need this mount point can depend on this mount unit.
LOADING THE LINUX KERNEL MODULE
The native Linux NBD client is a kernel module called "nbd.ko". It is not always loaded on demand. To
ensure it is loaded you may need to do:
# echo nbd > /etc/modules-load.d/nbd.conf
This will not take effect until you reboot, so to load it right away do:
# modprobe nbd
RHEL and nbd.ko
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 enabled the "nbd.ko" Linux kernel module but only for Unix domain sockets (ie.
local connections). This means you cannot connect to an NBD server over a TCP network. This also
affects Linux distributions derived from RHEL like CentOS, Alma and others.
This does not affect use of nbdkit as an NBD server, only the Linux kernel as an NBD client. Userspace
Linux clients such as libnbd(3) tools will work.
ATTACHING NBD DEVICES TO A VIRTUAL MACHINE
Notice in these cases that the virtual machine does not use the NBD protocol directly. Instead, the
virtual machine sees a local disk. Thus there is no need to enable an NBD client or kernel module inside
the virtual machine. Behind the scenes the hypervisor (eg. Qemu) converts the local disk into an NBD
connection.
Using libvirt XML
Use the virsh(1) "edit" subcommand to modify the libvirt XML of a virtual machine:
# virsh edit guest-name
The <disk> element should be placed in the <devices> section of the XML, after any other <disk> elements.
For more information about libvirt XML see https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html
For NBD devices served over a Unix domain socket (nbdkit -U option) add:
<disk device="disk" type="network">
<source protocol="nbd">
<host transport="unix" socket="/path/to/unix.sock"/>
</source>
<target dev="vdb" bus="virtio"/>
<driver name="qemu" type="raw"/>
</disk>
If using a TCP socket (nbdkit -p option):
<disk device="disk" type="network">
<source protocol="nbd">
<host name="localhost" port="10809"/>
</source>
<target dev="vdb" bus="virtio"/>
<driver name="qemu" type="raw"/>
</disk>
Using qemu directly
Qemu can open NBD URIs. To get nbdkit to show the URI it is serving use the --print-uri option.
For example:
$ nbdkit -f -U - --print-uri memory 1G
nbd+unix://?socket=/tmp/nbdkitTV6kS8/socket
Shell-quoted URI: "nbd+unix://?socket=/tmp/nbdkitTV6kS8/socket"
Command to query the NBD endpoint:
nbdinfo "nbd+unix://?socket=/tmp/nbdkitTV6kS8/socket"
$ qemu-system-x86_64 [...] \
-drive file="nbd+unix://?socket=/tmp/nbdkitTV6kS8/socket",format=raw,if=virtio
SEE ALSO
nbdkit(1), nbdkit-loop(1), nbdkit-service(1), nbd-client(8), nbdtab(5), systemd(1), systemd.mount(5),
virsh(1), https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html.
AUTHORS
Richard W.M. Jones
COPYRIGHT
Copyright Red Hat
LICENSE
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nbdkit-1.42.9 2025-11-07 nbdkit-client(1)