DOKK / manpages / debian 10 / nbdkit / nbdkit-curl-plugin.1.en
nbdkit-curl-plugin(1) NBDKIT nbdkit-curl-plugin(1)

nbdkit-curl-plugin - nbdkit curl plugin (HTTP, FTP, SSH and other protocols)

 nbdkit -r curl [url=]http://example.com/disk.img
 nbdkit -r curl [url=]sftp://you@example.com/~/disk.img

"nbdkit-curl-plugin" is a plugin for nbdkit(1) which turns content served over HTTP, FTP, SSH, and more, into a Network Block Device. It uses a library called libcurl (also known as cURL) to read data from URLs. The exact list of protocols that libcurl can handle depends on how it was compiled, but most versions will handle HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS and SFTP (see: "curl -V"). For more information about libcurl, see http://curl.haxx.se.

Note: This plugin supports writes. However:

  • For HTTP, you may not want nbdkit to issue PUT requests to the remote server (which probably doesn't understand them).
  • SFTP helpfully truncates the target file when you open it for writing. Not useful!

To force nbdkit to use a readonly connection, pass the -r flag.

EXAMPLES

Basic usage

 nbdkit -r curl http://example.com/disk.img

which serves the remote disk image as a NBD on TCP port 10809 (to control ports and protocols used to serve NBD see nbdkit(1)).

Accessing SSH servers

You can also access SSH servers. This uses the SFTP protocol which is built into most SSH servers:

 nbdkit -r curl sftp://example.com/~/disk.img

You may need to specify a username and/or a password. In this example the password is read from stdin:

 nbdkit -r curl sftp://example.com/~/disk.img username=fred password=-

Set the password to use when connecting to the remote server.

Note that passing this on the command line is not secure on shared machines.

Ask for the password (interactively) when nbdkit starts up.
Read the password from the named file. This is the most secure method to supply a password, as long as you set the permissions on the file appropriately.
Don't verify the SSL certificate of the remote host.
Set the timeout for requests.
Use the default libcurl timeout for requests.
Instead of using a TCP connection, connect to the server over the named Unix domain socket. See "CURLOPT_UNIX_SOCKET_PATH" in curl_easy_setopt(3).
The URL of the remote disk image. This is passed to libcurl directly via "CURLOPT_URL" in curl_easy_setopt(3).

This parameter is required.

In nbdkit ≥ 1.8.2, "url=" may be omitted.

Set the username to use when connecting to the remote server. This may also be set in the URL (eg. "http://foo@example.com/disk.img")

This enables very verbose curl debugging. See CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3). This is mainly useful if you suspect there is a bug inside libcurl itself.

curl(1), libcurl(3), CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3), nbdkit(1), nbdkit-plugin(3).

Richard W.M. Jones

Parts derived from Alexander Graf's "QEMU Block driver for CURL images".

Copyright (C) 2014 Red Hat Inc.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

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  • 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.
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THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY RED HAT 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 RED HAT 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.

2019-01-26 nbdkit-1.10.3