MOUNT_PORTALFS(8) BSD System Manager's Manual MOUNT_PORTALFS(8)NAMEmount_portalfs — mount the portal daemon
SYNOPSISmount_portalfs [-o options] /etc/portal.conf mount_point
DESCRIPTION
The mount_portalfs utility attaches an instance of the portal daemon to
the global file system namespace. The conventional mount point is /p.
This command is normally executed by mount(8) at boot time.
The options are as follows:
-o Options are specified with a -o flag followed by a comma sepa‐
rated string of options. See the mount(8) man page for possible
options and their meanings.
The portal daemon provides an open service. Objects opened under the
portal mount point are dynamically created by the portal daemon according
to rules specified in the named configuration file. Using this mechanism
allows descriptors such as sockets to be made available in the file sys‐
tem namespace.
The portal daemon works by being passed the full pathname of the object
being opened. The daemon creates an appropriate descriptor according to
the rules in the configuration file, and then passes the descriptor back
to the calling process as the result of the open system call.
NAMESPACE
By convention, the portal daemon divides the namespace into sub-names‐
paces, each of which handles objects of a particular type.
The following sub-namespaces are currently implemented: fs, pipe, tcp,
and tcplisten.
The fs namespace opens the named file, starting back at the root direc‐
tory. This can be used to provide a controlled escape path from a
chrooted environment.
The pipe namespace executes the named command, starting back at the root
directory. The command's arguments can be provided after the command's
name, by separating them with spaces or tabs. Files opened for reading
in the pipe namespace will receive their input from the command's stan‐
dard output; files opened for writing will send the data of write opera‐
tions to the command's standard input.
The tcp namespace takes a slash separated hostname and a port and creates
an open TCP/IP connection.
The tcplisten namespace takes a slash separated hostname and port and
creates a TCP/IP socket bound to the given hostname-port pair. The host‐
name may be specified as "ANY" to allow any other host to connect to the
socket. A port number of 0 will dynamically allocate a port, this can be
discovered by calling getsockname(2) with the returned file descriptor.
Privileged ports can only be bound to by the super-user.
CONFIGURATION FILE
The configuration file contains a list of rules. Each rule takes one
line and consists of two or more whitespace separated fields. A hash
(``#'') character causes the remainder of a line to be ignored. Blank
lines are ignored.
The first field is a pathname prefix to match against the requested path‐
name. If a match is found, the second field tells the daemon what type
of object to create. Subsequent fields are passed to the creation func‐
tion.
# @(#)portal.conf 5.1 (Berkeley) 7/13/92
tcplisten/ tcplisten tcplisten/
tcp/ tcp tcp/
fs/ file fs/
pipe/ pipe pipe/
FILES
/p/*
EXAMPLES
Display the greeting of the FreeBSD SMTP server.
head -1 /p/tcp/mx1.freebsd.org/smtp
Implement a (single-threaded) echo server:
while :
do
(exec 3<>/p/tcplisten/ANY/echo && cat -u <&3 >&3)
done
Gather data from two sources. Verify that two remote files are identi‐
cal:
diff -q '/p/pipe/usr/bin/fetch -o - \
ftp://ftp1.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT' \
'/p/pipe/usr/bin/fetch -o - \
ftp://ftp2.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/README.TXT'
Scatter data to two sinks. Record a remote CD ISO image and calculate
its checksum:
fetch -o - ftp://ftp5.freebsd.org/.../disc.iso |
tee '/p/pipe/usr/local/bin/cdrecord -' |
md5
Create an XML view of the password file:
ln -s '/p/pipe/usr/local/bin/passwd2xml /etc/passwd' \
/etc/passwd.xml"
SEE ALSOmount(2), unmount(2), fstab(5), mount(8)
W. Richard Stevens and Jan-Simon Pendry, "Portals in 4.4BSD", USENIX 1995
Technical Conference Proceedings, Peter Honeyman, Berkeley, CA.
CAVEATS
This file system may not be NFS-exported.
HISTORY
The mount_portalfs utility first appeared in 4.4BSD.
BSD March 11, 2005 BSD