Installation guide

Section 6.1:Setting Up an NFS Service 109
6.1.5 Active-Active NFS Configuration
In the previous section, an example configuration of a simple NFS service was discussed. This section
describes how to setup a more complex NFS service.
The example in this section involves configuring a pair of highly available NFS services. In this ex-
ample, suppose two separate teams of users will be accessing NFS filesystems served by the cluster.
To serve these users, two separate NFS services will be configured. Each service will have its own
separate IP address and be preferred to distinct cluster members. In this manner, under normal oper-
ating circumstances, when both cluster members are running, each will be NFS exporting one of the
filesystems. This enables an administrator to most effectively utilize the capacity of the two server
systems. In the event of a failure (or planned maintenance) on either of the cluster members, both NFS
services will be running on the active cluster member.
This example configuration will expand upon the NFS service created in the prior section by adding
in a second service. The following service configuration parameters apply to this second service:
• Service Name —
nfs_engineering. This name was chosen as a reminder of the service’s intended
function to provide NFS exports to the members of the engineering department.
• Preferred Member —
clu3. In this example cluster, the member names are clu3 and clu4. Note
that here clu3 is specified because the other cluster service (nfs_accounting) has clu4 specified as
its preferred server.
• IP Address —
10.0.0.11. There is a corresponding hostname of clunfseng associated with this IP
address, by which NFS clients mount the filesystem. Note that this IP address is distinct from
that of both cluster members (clu3 and clu4). Also note that this IP address is different from the
one associated with the other NFS service (nfs_accounting). The default netmask and broadcast
address will be used.
• Mount Information — /dev/sdb11, which refers to the partition on the shared storage RAID
box on which the filesystem will be physically stored.
ext2 — referring to the filesystem type
which was specified when the filesystem was created. /mnt/users/engineering — speci-
fies the filesystem mount point. rw,nosuid,sync — are the mount options.
• Export Information — for this example, individual subdirectories of the mounted filesystem will
be made accessible on a read-write (rw) basis by three members of the engineering department.
The names of the systems used by these three team members are ferris, denham, and brown.
To make this example more illustrative, notice that each team member will only be able to NFS
mount their specific subdirectory.
The following is an example output from running cluadmin to create this second NFS service on
the same cluster as used in the prior example when the service nfs_accounting was created.
cluadmin> service add