Managing Systems and Workgroups: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators

Setting Up and Administering an HP-UX NFS Diskless Cluster
Setting Up NFS Cluster Hardware
Chapter 10906
If some clients have local file systems that are not accessible from the
server, backups need to be done from the clients. The clients can do the
backup over the network to the backup device on the server.
Printers and Plotters
SAM allows you to add printers and plotters to the cluster server or any
cluster client. When a device is added, you can specify whether you want
to have SAM add the device to all members of the cluster, thus managing
it as a cluster-wide resource. Alternatively, you can have the device only
added to the local system where SAM is running.
Local Area Network (LAN)
Clients are connected to the server by a local area network (LAN). The
cluster server may be equipped with more than one LAN card; clients
may be attached to any of the server’s LANs. It is also possible to boot
clients across a gateway. Typically, a gateway is a router or computer
that is used to connect two or more networks. (See “Configuring a Relay
Agent” on page 915 for more details on gateways.)
There can be more than one cluster on a LAN. Standalone computers
(not part of any cluster) can also be on a cluster’s LAN.
Disk Storage
HP-UX gives you considerable flexibility in distributing file space and
swap space in a cluster:
• File system space
By default, a client’s file system is allocated on disks attached to the
cluster server. In addition, a client can access NFS-mounted file
systems on disks that are attached to cluster clients or to systems
outside the cluster.
When a file system is added to a cluster member, you can specify
whether you want to have SAM add the file system to all members of
the cluster, thus managing it as a cluster-wide resource.
A file system residing on a disk attached to a client is referred to as a
locally mounted file system. Client file systems should not be
mounted under directories that contain software shared with other
cluster members. For example, do not mount local file systems under
/sbin, /usr, or /opt/*.