xref: /dragonfly/share/man/man4/vn.4 (revision 984263bc)
1.\"	$NetBSD: vnd.4,v 1.1 1995/12/30 18:10:48 thorpej Exp $
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3.\" Copyright (c) 1995 Jason R. Thorpe.
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16.\"	This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
17.\"	by Jason R. Thorpe.
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34.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/vn.4,v 1.6.2.4 2002/04/15 05:48:55 asmodai Exp $
35.\"
36.Dd December 30, 1995
37.Dt VN 4
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm vn
41.Nd vnode disk driver
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.Cd "pseudo-device vn"
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The
46.Nm
47driver uses swap or a file as backing store to abstract-out a character and
48block device which may then be used like a disk.  The
49.Nm
50driver supports both labeled and unlabeled pseudo-disks and is useful for
51a variety of applications, including swap files and building mini-root,
52floppy, or CDRom disk images.
53.Nm
54may also be used to create temporary swap-backed filesystems, such as /tmp,
55in a somewhat less memory-hungry manner than MFS.
56.Pp
57This document assumes that you're familiar with how to generate kernels,
58how to properly configure disks and pseudo-devices in a kernel
59configuration file.
60.Pp
61In order to compile in support for the
62.Nm ,
63you must add a line similar
64to the following to your kernel configuration file:
65.Bd -unfilled -offset indent
66pseudo-device	vn		#Vnode driver
67.Ed
68.Pp
69.Nm
70may also exist as a kernel module to be automatically loaded into the
71system when you run the vnconfig command for the first time.
72.Pp
73There is a run-time utility that is used for configuring
74.Nm Ns 's .
75See
76.Xr vnconfig 8
77for more information.
78.Sh BUGS
79The
80.Nm
81driver does not work if the file does not reside in a local filesystem.
82.Sh FILES
83/dev/{,r}vn* - vn device special files.
84.Pp
85.Sh HISTORY
86The vnode disk driver was originally written at the University of
87Utah and was substantially modified by
88.Fx
89developers to add
90swap-backed support.
91.Sh SEE ALSO
92.Xr config 8 ,
93.Xr fsck 8 ,
94.Xr MAKEDEV 8 ,
95.Xr mount 8 ,
96.Xr newfs 8 ,
97.Xr vnconfig 8
98