From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754875AbbERTBI (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 May 2015 15:01:08 -0400 Received: from mail-ig0-f173.google.com ([209.85.213.173]:35970 "EHLO mail-ig0-f173.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754295AbbERTBG (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 May 2015 15:01:06 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 15:01:06 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Userspace Block Device From: Bill Speirs To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org My goal is to provide Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage as a block device. I would like to leverage the libraries that exist for both systems by servicing requests via a user space program. I found 2 LKML threads that talk about a "userspace block device": 2005-11-09: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/346883 2009-07-27: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/869784 The first thread resulted in Michael Clark suggesting his kernel module: https://github.com/michaeljclark/userblk The second essentially resulted in "use nbd". Mr. Clark's module is now over 10 years old, and ndb seems like a bit of a Rube Goldberg solution. Does the kernel now supports a facility to service bio requests via user space? If not, what would be the best approach to take? Update Mr. Clark's code? Or is there a newer and more efficient facility for kernel <-> user space communication and transferring of data? Thanks... Bill-