# Sharing a DVD/RW via NFS question



## Chris_H (Aug 1, 2013)

Greetings,

I haven't attempted this for some years now. So I'd like to ask; what is the best way to share a CD/DVD/RW via an NFS mount? Is it even possible? In other words. If I have several machines, and I want to burn, or otherwise be able to read from one common CD/DVD/RW drive. How best to implement the share? It should be able to be found by any common burning software -- k3b, for example. And said application should be able to burn on it.

Thank you for all your time, and consideration.

--chris

P.S. I hope this is the correct location for this question.


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## SirDice (Aug 2, 2013)

I'm afraid that's not going to work. Burn programs need direct access to the drive.


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## Chris_H (Aug 2, 2013)

Greetings @SirDice, and thank you for the reply. I was afraid you'd say that. Doesn't hurt to hope.  I seem to remember schillings SCSI driver also providing a daemon. Maybe that could be an answer.

Thanks again, @SirDice.

--chris


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## SirDice (Aug 2, 2013)

Maybe you can pull this off with iSCSI which is basically SCSI over IP. But I'm not sure iSCSI has any provisions for things like burners, I don't think it does. Perhaps it could be extended, I do see a use for such functionality.

Burn programs 'talk' SCSI to the drives so if you can somehow transfer those commands over the network to another machine it may theoretically work. You would have to use some sort of caching though, burners need a steady stream of data and a network may be unstable.

I'm just thinking out loud but a daemon that creates a 'virtual' drive receives the data sent to it and passes it along to another machine with a similar daemon that does the writing to the actual physical drive.


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## Chris_H (Aug 2, 2013)

Thanks @SirDice. I can't believe I hadn't thought of iSCSI myself. That's something to definitely think about.

--chris


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## pboehmer (Aug 2, 2013)

Just throwing this out there, but have you considered using a shared network folder that users can dump images to and have a script running local to the burner "polling" for downloaded images and burning them?

User copies file filetoburn.iso to shared folder.  After the image is copied, user then copies a file called filetoburn.ready (which contains users email address and possibly md5 of image) after the iso/img is complete.  Polling script continually checks for .ready file and once detected runs a burn script (and deleting the .ready file).  Burn script will check for media, burn image, and once completed, emails status of burn to user.

Again, just a thought...


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## Chris_H (Aug 2, 2013)

Greetings @pboehmer, while it wouldn't fulfill my needs, it's a clever idea. Thanks. I think if I were to implement something that. I'd probably set up a burn, 'if not modified since' cron/loop.

Thanks for chiming in.

--chris


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## wblock@ (Aug 2, 2013)

Given the need to load a blank disk and the price of DVD burners, why not just install them where needed?


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## Chris_H (Aug 2, 2013)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Given the need to load a blank disk and the price of DVD burners, why not just install them where needed?



LOL. I _knew_ that would come up. 
Reason being; All my servers, and such, are in a server cabinet (cooling UPS, clean room, ...). I'm currently using 1 DVDRW on a USB3 --> SATA arrangement, off my dev box. I thought it might be handy to make it "globally" available. For those times when I need to dump data, or even create a "special" install, and it's not (as) handy to direct it to my "dev" box, for later burning.

--chris


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## wblock@ (Aug 2, 2013)

If it's just you as a user, ssh(1) to the machine with the burner and use cdrecord or growisofs.  I'm sure that could all be wrapped up in a single ssh(1) command, including redirecting the ISO file data.


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## Chris_H (Aug 2, 2013)

Greetings @wblock@, and thanks for taking the time to reply. Good advice. Seems a bit more practical.

Thanks again.

--chris


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## SirDice (Sep 10, 2013)

An old thread but I just noticed something in a part of the handbook I rarely read :r

20.7. GEOM Gate Network Devices

Now, this should work for CD/DVD-ROMs and partitions but I have no idea if this also works for burners. I think it's worth a shot.


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