diod is a file server that speaks 9P2000.L protocol.

The basic installation instructions are:

$ ./configure
$ make
$ make check
$ sudo make install

Or for the minimalists:

$ ./configure --disable-diodmount --disable-config \
 --disable-auth --disable-multiuser

To build from the git tree, first do:

$ git clone https://github.com/chaos/diod.git
$ cd diod
$ ./autogen.sh

To build and install a test deb package (debian-based systems only):

$ sudo scripts/install-deps-deb.sh deb test
$ ./configure
$ make deb
$ cd debbuild
$ sudo dpkg -i *deb

NOTE: Don't run make check as root. Tests that require root will attempt to use passwordless sudo. If that is unavailable, those tests are simply skipped.

start the server:

$ diod --listen=127.0.0.1:9000 --no-auth --export=/home/bob
Listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
Only bob can attach and access files as bob
No authentication is required

mount the file system:

$ sudo mount -t 9p -n -o version=9p2000.L,trans=tcp \
 -o aname=/home/bob,uname=bob,access=1001,port=9000 127.0.0.1 /mnt/bob

start the server:

$ sudo diod --no-auth --export=/home
Listening on 0.0.0.0:564
Anyone can attach and access files as themselves
No authentication is required

mount the file system:

$ sudo mount.diod localhost:/home /mnt/home

or equivalently

$ sudo mount -t 9p -n -o version=9p2000.L,trans=tcp \
 -o aname=/home,uname=root,access=client 127.0.0.1 /mnt/home

If you are asking this here, you must mean diod with the Linux v9fs kernel client. Roughly speaking, diod in multi-user mode coupled with v9fs access=client,uname=root approximates NFS, but be aware of the following caveats:

• If the server restarts or the client loses its connection, the client will need to be remounted. There is no automatic recovery.
• By default, there is no caching so interactive performance is poor. Several v9fs client caching options are available, with different trade-offs, however there is no mechanism in 9P to allow the server to invalidate a cached object.
• Even when securely authenticated with MUNGE, connections are not protected against eavesdropping or other attacks.
• File locking may not work as expected (test your use case!)

9P is compelling for its simplicity.

SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later