VND(4)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so bestie, meet VND(4) from the Kernel Interfaces Manual — the vnode disk driver. It’s literally giving “disk-like interface to a file” energy, and it’s iconic for a whole bunch of applications, including swap files and building miniroot or floppy disk images. 💖

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

pseudo-device vnd
options VND_COMPRESSION

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So this doc is assuming you already know how to generate kernels and how to properly configure disks and pseudo-devices in a kernel configuration file. No cap, that’s the baseline. 💅

To compile in support for the vnd, add a line similar to this one to your kernel configuration file:

pseudo-device  vnd       # vnode disk driver

To also compile in support for reading compressed disk images, add this option to your kernel config file:

options        VND_COMPRESSION    # compressed vnd(4)

Compressed disk images are expected in the cloop2 format. They can be created from “normal” disk images by the vndcompress(1) program. 🎀

There’s also a run-time utility used for configuring both compressed and uncompressed vnds — go see vnconfig(8) for more info, bestie. 🫶

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /dev/{,r}vnd* — the vnd device special files. periodt. 💅

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• config(1)
• vndcompress(1)
• fsck(8)
• MAKEDEV(8)
• mount(8)
• newfs(8)
• vnconfig(8)

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

The vnode disk driver was originally written at the University of Utah. The compression handling is based on code by Cliff Wright ⟨cliff@snipe444.org⟩. ✨

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💀 BUGS 💀

🚨 important vibe check: the vnd driver does not work if the file does not reside in a local filesystem. That’s the rule, fr fr. 😭

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and that’s the whole page, bestie — this Debian edition of VND(4) is dated September 29, 2017, and it ate, no crumbs. 💋🎀✨