Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263620AbUACSHL (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:07:11 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263622AbUACSHL (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:07:11 -0500 Received: from smtp004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com ([217.12.11.35]:6750 "HELO smtp004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S263620AbUACSHJ convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:07:09 -0500 From: BlaisorBlade To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [NEW FEATURE]Partitions on loop device for 2.6 Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:05:42 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.5 References: <200312241341.23523.blaisorblade_spam@yahoo.it> <3FF5DCE8.4020008@tmr.com> In-Reply-To: <3FF5DCE8.4020008@tmr.com> Cc: Bill Davidsen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200401031905.42584.blaisorblade_spam@yahoo.it> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1623 Lines: 36 Alle 22:04, venerd? 2 gennaio 2004, Bill Davidsen ha scritto: > BlaisorBlade wrote: > > NEED: > > I have the need to loop mount files containing not plain filesystems, but > > whole disk images. > > > > This is especially needed when using User-mode-linux, since to run any > > distro installer you must partition the virtual disks(and on the host, > > the backing file of the disk contains a partition table). > > > > Currently this could be done by specifying a positive offset, but letting > > the kernel partition code handle this is better, isn't it? Would you ever > > accept this feature into stock kernel? > > UML is on my list of things to learn (as opposed to "try casually and > ignore") It is something a bit like VMWare. But instead of emulating hardware and running an OS inside that, you run a patched Linux kernel that runs as an userspace process on the host and provides a virtual machine, which must access a virtual disk, which is stored on a file. See http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/ for more info. > but have you considered using NBD? I didn't really know what it was, nor it seems useful for this "as is" (I've not really checked). Maybe that sentence means that the server program could do the partition parsing? -- cat <