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authorPaulo Alcantara (SUSE) <paulo@paulo.ac>2019-07-16 19:04:50 -0300
committerSteve French <stfrench@microsoft.com>2019-09-16 11:43:38 -0500
commit8eecd1c2e5bc73d33f3a544751305679dbf88eb4 (patch)
tree3f908c5e60132624f86d3565d468a18ddd066d42 /Documentation/filesystems
parent0892ba693f304ce3e9ca1f0a64a5cfc051454996 (diff)
cifs: Add support for root file systems
Introduce a new CONFIG_CIFS_ROOT option to handle root file systems over a SMB share. In order to mount the root file system during the init process, make cifs.ko perform non-blocking socket operations while mounting and accessing it. Cc: Steve French <smfrench@gmail.com> Reviewed-by: Aurelien Aptel <aaptel@suse.com> Signed-off-by: Paulo Alcantara (SUSE) <paulo@paulo.ac> Signed-off-by: Steve French <stfrench@microsoft.com>
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+Mounting root file system via SMB (cifs.ko)
+===========================================
+
+Written 2019 by Paulo Alcantara <palcantara@suse.de>
+Written 2019 by Aurelien Aptel <aaptel@suse.com>
+
+The CONFIG_CIFS_ROOT option enables experimental root file system
+support over the SMB protocol via cifs.ko.
+
+It introduces a new kernel command-line option called 'cifsroot='
+which will tell the kernel to mount the root file system over the
+network by utilizing SMB or CIFS protocol.
+
+In order to mount, the network stack will also need to be set up by
+using 'ip=' config option. For more details, see
+Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt.
+
+A CIFS root mount currently requires the use of SMB1+UNIX Extensions
+which is only supported by the Samba server. SMB1 is the older
+deprecated version of the protocol but it has been extended to support
+POSIX features (See [1]). The equivalent extensions for the newer
+recommended version of the protocol (SMB3) have not been fully
+implemented yet which means SMB3 doesn't support some required POSIX
+file system objects (e.g. block devices, pipes, sockets).
+
+As a result, a CIFS root will default to SMB1 for now but the version
+to use can nonetheless be changed via the 'vers=' mount option. This
+default will change once the SMB3 POSIX extensions are fully
+implemented.
+
+Server configuration
+====================
+
+To enable SMB1+UNIX extensions you will need to set these global
+settings in Samba smb.conf:
+
+ [global]
+ server min protocol = NT1
+ unix extension = yes # default
+
+Kernel command line
+===================
+
+root=/dev/cifs
+
+This is just a virtual device that basically tells the kernel to mount
+the root file system via SMB protocol.
+
+cifsroot=//<server-ip>/<share>[,options]
+
+Enables the kernel to mount the root file system via SMB that are
+located in the <server-ip> and <share> specified in this option.
+
+The default mount options are set in fs/cifs/cifsroot.c.
+
+server-ip
+ IPv4 address of the server.
+
+share
+ Path to SMB share (rootfs).
+
+options
+ Optional mount options. For more information, see mount.cifs(8).
+
+Examples
+========
+
+Export root file system as a Samba share in smb.conf file.
+
+...
+[linux]
+ path = /path/to/rootfs
+ read only = no
+ guest ok = yes
+ force user = root
+ force group = root
+ browseable = yes
+ writeable = yes
+ admin users = root
+ public = yes
+ create mask = 0777
+ directory mask = 0777
+...
+
+Restart smb service.
+
+# systemctl restart smb
+
+Test it under QEMU on a kernel built with CONFIG_CIFS_ROOT and
+CONFIG_IP_PNP options enabled.
+
+# qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -cpu host -m 1024 \
+ -kernel /path/to/linux/arch/x86/boot/bzImage -nographic \
+ -append "root=/dev/cifs rw ip=dhcp cifsroot=//10.0.2.2/linux,username=foo,password=bar console=ttyS0 3"
+
+
+1: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/UNIX_Extensions