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MD(4) BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual MD(4) NAME md -- memory disk SYNOPSIS device md DESCRIPTION The md driver provides support for four kinds of memory backed virtual disks: malloc Backing store is allocated using malloc(9). Only one malloc- bucket is used, which means that all md devices with malloc backing must share the malloc-per-bucket-quota. The exact size of this quota varies, in particular with the amount of RAM in the system. The exact value can be determined with vmstat(8). preload A file loaded by loader(8) with type `md_image' is used for backing store. For backwards compatibility the type `mfs_root' is also recognized. If the kernel is created with option MD_ROOT the first preloaded image found will become the root file system. vnode A regular file is used as backing store. This allows for mount- ing ISO images without the tedious detour over actual physical media. swap Backing store is allocated from buffer memory. Pages get pushed out to the swap when the system is under memory pressure, other- wise they stay in the operating memory. Using swap backing is generally preferable over malloc backing. For more information, please see mdconfig(8). EXAMPLES To create a kernel with a ramdisk or MD file system, your kernel config needs the following options: options MD_ROOT #MD is a potential root device options MD_ROOT_SIZE=8192 # 8MB ram disk makeoptions MFS_IMAGE=/h/foo/ARM-MD options ROOTDEVNAME= The image in /h/foo/ARM-MD will be loaded as the initial image each boot. To create the image to use, please follow the steps to create a file- backed disk found in the mdconfig(8) man page. Other tools will also create these images, such as NanoBSD. SEE ALSO disklabel(5), disklabel(8), fdisk(8), loader(8), mdconfig(8), mdmfs(8), newfs(8), vmstat(8) HISTORY The md driver first appeared in FreeBSD 4.0 as a cleaner replacement for the MFS functionality previously used in PicoBSD and in the FreeBSD in- stallation process. The md driver did a hostile takeover of the vn(4) driver in FreeBSD 5.0. AUTHORS The md driver was written by Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.org>. BSD November 24, 2006 BSD
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS
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