arch-wiki-md-repo/wiki/_content/english/9vx.md

All arch-wiki articles in markdown format, updated every two days.

9vx is an implementation of the simple x86 virtual machine [vx32](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~baford/vm/) specifically designed for running real Plan9 on other host systems.

## Contents

*   [1 Installation](#Installation)
*   [2 A short tutorial](#A_short_tutorial)
*   [3 Problems](#Problems)
    *   [3.1 Installing Plan9 on a disk image](#Installing_Plan9_on_a_disk_image)
    *   [3.2 Putting the Plan9 root file system in an insecure directory](#Putting_the_Plan9_root_file_system_in_an_insecure_directory)
*   [4 Alternatives](#Alternatives)

## Installation

A minimal recent build of [9vx](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=49816) can be found in the [AUR](/index.php/AUR "AUR").

## A short tutorial

After installing 9vx:

*   Extract a Plan9 root file system (ISOs from [official plan9](http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9/index.html), [9atom](http://www.quanstro.net/plan9/9atom/) or [9front](https://code.google.com/archive/p/plan9front) all should work) into your directory of choice "/path/to/plan9" (9vx defaults to the directory /usr/local/plan9vx)
*   make sure that /opt/vx32/bin is in your PATH
*   invoke "9vx -r /path/to/plan9 -u glenda" to start as user Glenda, a local system administrator user account which can be used for installing programs and changing system settings. If you run the official Plan9 root file system, you will here also get a small tutorial about how to use rio and acme.
*   invoke "9vx -r /path/to/plan9" to start as your user (at first run, write /sys/lib/newuser at the rc prompt to set up your environment).

## Problems

Running Plan9 from a directory can be very handy, especially since you easily can move files into your virtual system from your host system. It does however come with a cost, which is related to user permissions. You will most likely run into issues where directories can not be created since the virtual Plan9 system lacks write permissions.

### Installing Plan9 on a disk image

One alternative to overcome this is to install a Plan9 according to these [instructions](http://9fans.net/archive/2010/10/14).

### Putting the Plan9 root file system in an insecure directory

A simpler but less secure way to solve the issue can be to utilize

```
chmod -R 777 /path/to/plan9/root/

```

This way, both user and glenda will be able to write to the plan9 root system and add directories.

## Alternatives

Recent advances in 9front and possibly 9atom makes those distributions possible to install and boot under virtualbox. Things that may be needed to make them work:

*   Use the PIIX3 IDE controller
*   install support for USB v2.

Also, for the CWFS of 9front, you need to make a disk image of at least 12 GiB.