Network Block Devices: Using Hardware Over a Network
In cases where NFS or SMB/CIFS won’t fit the needs of your Linux network, Network Block Devices (NBDs) may provide superior performance over traditional network filesystems.
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Most Linux administrators today are familiar with protocols such as the Network File System (NFS) and the Server Message Block/Common Internet File System (SMB/CIFS, the protocol used by Samba). These protocols enable you to share filesystems across a network — the Linux computer sitting on your desk can access files stored on another Linux system, a Windows computer, or whatnot across the office (or on the other side of the planet!).
While NFS, SMB/CIFS, and similar protocols are handy, they aren’t always ideally suited to what you need to do. One obscure Linux tool can sometimes help on this score: Network block devices (NBDs). This tool is a way to enable one computer to provide another computer with direct low-level access to block device hardware. (Block devices exchange data in fixed-size multi-byte blocks, whereas character devices communicate in byte-size chunks. Disks, including hard disks, floppy disks, and CD-ROM/DVD drives, are…
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