.\" Copyright (c) 1993 University of Utah. .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1989, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" Copyright (c) 2000 .\" Poul-Henning Kamp All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by .\" the Systems Programming Group of the University of Utah Computer .\" Science Department. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)vnconfig.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93 .\" from: src/usr.sbin/vnconfig/vnconfig.8,v 1.19 2000/12/27 15:30:29 .\" .\" $FreeBSD$ .\" .Dd November 30, 2013 .Dt MDCONFIG 8 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm mdconfig .Nd configure and enable memory disks .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Fl a .Fl t Ar type .Op Fl n .Oo Fl o Oo Cm no Oc Ns Ar option Oc ... .Op Fl f Ar file .Op Fl s Ar size .Op Fl S Ar sectorsize .Op Fl u Ar unit .Op Fl x Ar sectors/track .Op Fl y Ar heads/cylinder .Nm .Fl d .Fl u Ar unit .Op Fl o Oo Cm no Oc Ns Ar force .Nm .Fl r .Fl u Ar unit .Fl s Ar size .Op Fl o Oo Cm no Oc Ns Ar force .Nm .Fl l .Op Fl n .Op Fl v .Op Fl f Ar file .Op Fl u Ar unit .Nm .Ar file .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility configures and enables .Xr md 4 devices. .Pp Options indicate an action to be performed: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl a Attach a memory disk. This will configure and attach a memory disk with the parameters specified and attach it to the system. If the .Fl u Ar unit option is not provided, the newly created device name will be printed on stdout. .It Fl d Detach a memory disk from the system and release all resources. .It Fl r Resize a memory disk. .It Fl t Ar type Select the type of the memory disk. .Bl -tag -width "malloc" .It Cm malloc Storage for this type of memory disk is allocated with .Xr malloc 9 . This limits the size to the malloc bucket limit in the kernel. If the .Fl o Cm reserve option is not set, creating and filling a large malloc-backed memory disk is a very easy way to panic a system. .It Cm vnode A file specified with .Fl f Ar file becomes the backing store for this memory disk. .It Cm swap Storage for this type of memory disk is allocated from buffer memory. Pages get pushed out to swap when the system is under memory pressure, otherwise they stay in the operating memory. Using .Cm swap backing is generally preferred instead of using .Cm malloc backing. .It Cm null Bitsink; all writes do nothing, all reads return zeroes. .El .It Fl f Ar file Filename to use for the vnode type memory disk. The .Fl a and .Fl t Ar vnode options are implied if not specified. .It Fl l List configured devices. If given with .Fl u , display details about that particular device. If given with .Fl f Ar file , display .Xr md 4 device names of which .Ar file is used as the backing store. If both of .Fl u and .Fl f options are specified, display devices which match the two conditions. If the .Fl v option is specified, show all details. .It Fl n When printing .Xr md 4 device names, print only the unit number without the .Xr md 4 prefix. .It Fl s Ar size Size of the memory disk. .Ar Size is the number of 512 byte sectors unless suffixed with a .Cm b , k , m , g , or .Cm t which denotes byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte and terabyte respectively. The .Fl a and .Fl t Ar swap options are implied if not specified. .It Fl S Ar sectorsize Sectorsize to use for the memory disk, in bytes. .It Fl x Ar sectors/track See the description of the .Fl y option below. .It Fl y Ar heads/cylinder For .Cm malloc or .Cm vnode backed devices, the .Fl x and .Fl y options can be used to specify a synthetic geometry. This is useful for constructing bootable images for later download to other devices. .It Fl o Oo Cm no Oc Ns Ar option Set or reset options. .Bl -tag -width indent .It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm async For .Cm vnode backed devices: avoid .Dv IO_SYNC for increased performance but at the risk of deadlocking the entire kernel. .It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm reserve Allocate and reserve all needed storage from the start, rather than as needed. .It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm cluster Enable clustering on this disk. .It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm compress Enable/disable compression features to reduce memory usage. .It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm force Disable/enable extra sanity checks to prevent the user from doing something that might adversely affect the system. .It Oo Cm no Oc Ns Cm readonly Enable/disable readonly mode. .El .It Fl u Ar unit Request a specific unit number or device name for the .Xr md 4 device instead of automatic allocation. If a device name is specified, it must be start with .Dq md followed by the unit number. .El .Pp The last form, .Nm .Ar file , is provided for convenience as an abbreviation of .Nm .Fl a .Fl t Ar vnode .Fl f Ar file . .Sh EXAMPLES Create a 4 megabyte .Xr malloc 9 backed memory disk. The name of the allocated unit will be printed on stdout, such as .Dq Li md3 : .Pp .Dl mdconfig -a -t malloc -s 4m .Pp Create a disk named .Pa /dev/md4 with .Pa /tmp/boot.flp as backing storage: .Pp .Dl mdconfig -a -t vnode -f /tmp/boot.flp -u md4 .Pp Detach and free all resources used by .Pa /dev/md4 : .Pp .Dl mdconfig -d -u md4 .Pp Create a 128MByte swap backed disk, initialize an .Xr ffs 7 file system on it, and mount it on .Pa /tmp : .Bd -literal -offset indent mdconfig -a -t swap -s 128M -u md10 newfs -U /dev/md10 mount /dev/md10 /tmp chmod 1777 /tmp .Ed .Pp Create a 5MB file-backed disk .Po Fl a and .Fl t Ar vnode are implied .Pc : .Bd -literal -offset indent dd if=/dev/zero of=somebackingfile bs=1k count=5k mdconfig -f somebackingfile -u md0 bsdlabel -w md0 auto newfs md0c mount /dev/md0c /mnt .Ed .Pp Create an .Xr md 4 device out of an ISO 9660 CD image file .Po Fl a and .Fl t Ar vnode are implied .Pc , using the first available .Xr md 4 device, and then mount the new memory disk: .Bd -literal -offset indent mount -t cd9660 /dev/`mdconfig -f cdimage.iso` /mnt .Pp .Ed Create a file-backed device from a hard disk image that begins with 512K of raw header information. .Xr gnop 8 is used to skip over the header information, positioning .Pa md1.nop to the start of the filesystem in the image. .Bd -literal -offset indent mdconfig -f diskimage.img -u md1 gnop create -o 512K md1 mount /dev/md1.nop /mnt .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr md 4 , .Xr ffs 7 , .Xr bsdlabel 8 , .Xr fdisk 8 , .Xr mdmfs 8 , .Xr malloc 9 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm utility first appeared in .Fx 5.0 as a cleaner replacement for the .Xr vn 4 and .Xr vnconfig 8 combo. .Sh AUTHORS The .Nm utility was written by .An Poul-Henning Kamp .Aq phk@FreeBSD.org .