NFS Installation and Configuration

Assumptions

The following assumptions are used in this document.

• the user has reasonable RHEL/Centos System administration skills
• installations are on Centos 7.3 minimal systems (fully patched)
• the user is or has deployed the example two node Stroom cluster storage hierarchy described here
• the configuration of this NFS is NOT secure. It is highly recommended to improve its security in a production environment. This could include improved firewall configuration to limit NFS access, NFS4 with Kerberos etc.

Installation of NFS software

We install NFS on each node, via

sudo yum -y install nfs-utils

sudo systemctl enable rpcbind
sudo systemctl enable nfs-server
sudo systemctl enable nfs-lock
sudo systemctl enable nfs-idmap
sudo systemctl start rpcbind
sudo systemctl start nfs-server
sudo systemctl start nfs-lock
sudo systemctl start nfs-idmap

Configuration of NFS exports

We now export the node’s /stroomdata directory (in case you want to share the working directories) by configuring /etc/exports. For simplicity sake, we will allow all nodes with the hostname nomenclature of stroomp*.strmdev00.org to mount the /stroomdata directory. This means the same configuration applies to all nodes.

# Share Stroom data directory
/stroomdata	stroomp*.strmdev00.org(rw,sync,no_root_squash)

This can be achieved with the following on both nodes

sudo su -c "printf '# Share Stroom data directory\n' >> /etc/exports"
sudo su -c "printf '/stroomdata\tstroomp*.strmdev00.org(rw,sync,no_root_squash)\n' >> /etc/exports"

On both nodes restart the NFS service to ensure the above export takes effect via

sudo systemctl restart nfs-server

So that our nodes can offer their filesystems, we need to enable NFS access on the firewall. This is done via

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=nfs --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-all

Test Mounting

You should do test mounts on each node.

• Node: stroomp00.strmdev00.org

sudo mount -t nfs4 stroomp01.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p01

• Node: stroomp01.strmdev00.org

sudo mount -t nfs4 stroomp00.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p00

If you are concerned you can’t see the mount with a df try a df --type=nfs4 -a or a sudo df. Irrespective, once the mounting works, make the mounts permanent by adding the following to each node’s /etc/fstab file.

• Node: stroomp00.strmdev00.org

stroomp01.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 nfs4 soft,bg

achieved with

sudo su -c "printf 'stroomp01.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 nfs4 soft,bg\n' >> /etc/fstab"

• Node: stroomp01.strmdev00.org

stroomp00.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 nfs4 soft,bg

achieved with

sudo su -c "printf 'stroomp00.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 nfs4 soft,bg\n' >> /etc/fstab"

Addition of another Node

If one needs to add another node to the cluster, lets say, stroomp02.strmdev00.org, on which /stroomdata follows the same storage hierarchy as the existing nodes and all nodes have added mount points (directories) for this new node, you would take the following steps in order.

• Node: stroomp02.strmdev00.org

  • Install NFS software as above
  • Configure the exports file as per

sudo su -c "printf '# Share Stroom data directory\n' >> /etc/exports"
sudo su -c "printf '/stroomdata\tstroomp*.strmdev00.org(rw,sync,no_root_squash)\n' >> /etc/exports"

• Restart the NFS service and make the firewall enable NFS access as per

sudo systemctl restart nfs-server
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=nfs --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-all

• Test mount the existing node file systems

sudo mount -t nfs4 stroomp00.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p00
sudo mount -t nfs4 stroomp01.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p01

• Once the test mounts work, we make them permanent by adding the following to the /etc/fstab file.

stroomp00.strmdev00.org:/home/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 /home/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 nfs4 soft,bg
stroomp01.strmdev00.org:/home/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 /home/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 nfs4 soft,bg

achieved with

sudo su -c "printf 'stroomp00.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p00 nfs4 soft,bg\n' >> /etc/fstab"
sudo su -c "printf 'stroomp01.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p01 nfs4 soft,bg\n' >> /etc/fstab"

• Node: stroomp00.strmdev00.org and stroomp01.strmdev00.org

  • Test mount the new node’s filesystem as per

sudo mount -t nfs4 stroomp02.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p02 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p02

• Once the test mount works, make the mount permanent by adding the following to the /etc/fstab file

stroomp02.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p02 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p02 nfs4 soft,bg

achieved with

sudo su -c "printf 'stroomp02.strmdev00.org:/stroomdata/stroom-data-p02 /stroomdata/stroom-data-p02 nfs4 soft,bg\n' >> /etc/fstab"