Re: 9pfs for the Hurd

[email protected]
Newsgroups gmane.os.hurd.bugs
Message-ID <[email protected]>
June 3, 2026 at 10:12 AM, "Sergey Bugaev" <[email protected] mailto:[email protected]?to=%22Sergey%20Bugaev%22%20%3Cbugaevc%40gmail.com%3E > wrote:



> 
> Hello,
> 
> Some years ago, I experimented with implementing a 9P translator for
> the Hurd. Hopefully there is no need to tell this list what 9P is :)
> 
> Besides just browsing files on the few existing servers out there, a
> potential use case is virtio-9p, to enable shared directory trees
> between VMs and the host. But that would need someone to implement
> virtio support in the Hurd.
> 
> I wanted to complete 9pfs before publishing, but that ultimately
> didn't happen, so now it's time to turn it over to the community. I
> now went and made the repository public on GitHub:
> https://github.com/bugaevc/9pfs
> 
> What's implemented is basic browsing (readdir, stat), path resolution
> (dir_lookup), and reading files (io_read). And below that, the whole
> tracking for nodes, peropens, protids, fids, tags, and 9p RPCs.
> 
> Improvements are welcome, send patches to this list with [PATCH 9pfs]
> in the subject. A good starting point would be to continue porting
> things that I had implemented in the old netfs-based version (see
> netfs.c) but didn't yet port to the new one.
> 
> Cheers,
> Sergey

Thanks for committing this and making it public!

I'll add a wiki article (as soon as I get time).  I'll use my own words
and not yours.  :)

It does sound super cool to be able to use 9pfs to:

1)  A GNU/Linux host launching several Hurd vms, and the GNU/Linux host
   (with some coding) should be able to read the Hurd's filesystem.

2)  A GNU/Hurd can launch several subhurds, and the parent Hurd can (with
   some coding) read (maybe write) the child hurds' filesystems.  Maybe some
   childhurds (with some coding) can read/write some portions of the parent
   Hurd's filesystem.

3)  What other cool possibilities are there?

Joshua
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