NBD is a protocol for accessing block devices (hard disks and
disk-like things) over the network.
nbdkit is a toolkit for creating NBD servers.
The key features are:
* Multithreaded NBD server written in C with good performance.
* Minimal dependencies for the basic server.
* Liberal license (BSD) allows nbdkit to be linked to proprietary
libraries or included in proprietary code.
* Well-documented, simple plugin API with a stable ABI guarantee.
Lets you to export "unconventional" block devices easily.
* You can write plugins in C or many other languages.
* Filters can be stacked in front of plugins to transform the output.
'nbdkit' is a meta-package which pulls in the core server and a
useful subset of plugins and filters with minimal dependencies.
If you want just the server, install 'nbdkit-server'.
To develop plugins, install the 'nbdkit-devel' package and start by
reading the nbdkit(1) and nbdkit-plugin(3) manual pages.
