18.5. GEOM Gate Network Devices

GEOM supports the remote use of devices, such as disks, CD-ROMs, files, etc. through the use of the gate utilities. This is similar to NFS.

To begin, an exports file must be created. This file specifies who is permitted to access the exported resources and what level of access they are offered. For example, to export the forth slice on the first SCSI disk, the following /etc/gg.exports is more than adequate:

192.168.1.0/24 RW /dev/da0s4d

It will allow all hosts inside the private network access the file system on the da0s4d partition.

To export this device, ensure it is not currently mounted, and start the ggated(8) server daemon:

# ggated

Now to mount the device on the client machine, issue the following commands:

# ggatec create -o rw 192.168.1.1 /dev/da0s4d

ggate0

# mount /dev/ggate0 /mnt

From here on, the device may be accessed through the /mnt mount point.

When the device is no longer needed, it may be safely unmounted with the umount(8) command, similar to any other disk device.