MNT(3)                                                     MNT(3)

     NAME
          mnt - attach to 9P servers

     SYNOPSIS
          #M

     DESCRIPTION
          The mount driver is used by Sys->mount (but not Sys->bind;
          see sys-bind(2)) to connect the name space of a process to
          the service provided by a 9P server over a communications
          channel.  After the mount, file operations in that portion
          of the name space will be converted by the mount driver into
          the appropriate 9P messages to the server, and its 9P
          replies returned as the status of the system calls.

          Any authentication must precede mount, which does none
          itself; see security-intro(2) for a discussion of the
          authentication and security mechanisms provided `ready made'
          by Inferno, but any other scheme can be agreed between
          client and server.  The mount system call does, however,
          issue an attach(5) message to the server to identify the
          user of the connection.  Each distinct user of a connection
          must mount it separately; the mount driver multiplexes the
          access of the various users and their processes to the ser-
          vice.

          File-oriented system calls are converted by the kernel into
          messages in the 9P protocol.  Within the kernel, 9P is
          implemented by procedure calls to the various kernel device
          drivers, as described in intro(10) and dev(10.2). The mount
          driver translates these procedure calls into remote proce-
          dure calls to be transmitted as messages over the communica-
          tion channel to the server.  Each message is implemented by
          a write of the corresponding protocol message to the server
          channel followed by a read on the server channel to get the
          reply.  Errors in the reply message are turned into system
          call error returns.

          A sys-read(2) or Sys->write system call on a file served by
          the mount driver may be translated into more than one mes-
          sage, since there is a maximum data size for a 9P message.
          The system call will return when the specified number of
          bytes have been transferred or a short reply is returned.

          The string `#M' is an illegal file name, so this device can
          be accessed directly only by the kernel.

     SEE ALSO
          bind(1), sys-bind(2)

     Page 1                       Plan 9             (printed 3/28/24)

     MNT(3)                                                     MNT(3)

     SOURCE
          /emu/port/devmnt.c
          /os/port/devmnt.c

     BUGS
          When mounting a service through the mount driver, that is,
          when the channel being multiplexed is itself a file being
          served by the mount driver, large messages may be broken in
          two.

     Page 2                       Plan 9             (printed 3/28/24)