systemd-storage-block@.service

systemd

systemd-storage-block.socket

systemd-storage-block

Storage provider exposing local block devices as storage volumes

systemd-storage-block@.service

systemd-storage-block.socket

Description

systemd-storage-block@.service is a system service that implements the io.systemd.StorageProvider Varlink interface, exposing the system's block devices (such as disks, partitions, and device-mapper nodes) as storage volumes that may be acquired by other programs as file descriptors.

The service is socket-activated via systemd-storage-block.socket, which listens on the AF_UNIX socket /run/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/block. The socket directory /run/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/ is the well-known location where storage providers register, see storagectl(1) for an enumeration tool.

See also systemd-storage-fs@.service(8) for a complementary implementation that exposes regular files and directories from a backing file system.

Volumes

The volumes exposed via the provider are identified by an absolute path (which must begin with /dev/), i.e. as a kernel block device node such as /dev/sda or /dev/disk/by-id/…. Volume names that are not normalized or that do not begin with /dev/ are not accepted.

Options

The following options are understood:

Files

/run/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/block
AF_UNIX socket the service listens on. This is the canonical location for the block storage provider, and is enumerated by storagectl providers.