Fwd: [nflug] NFS isn't (all) bad.

[James Wenzel]

Hello,

> If anyone knows a
> better way that's more efficient, uses less CPU and
> is easier to do, 
> please respond.

Use Window$

:)

Jamie

--- "David J. Andruczyk" <djandruczyk at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:47:43 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "David J. Andruczyk" <djandruczyk at yahoo.com>
> To: nflug at nflug.org
> Subject: [nflug] NFS isn't (all) bad.
> 
> There's been a statement put up by an individual
> "That NFS is bad,  I
> won't use it, it's so out-dated and so full or
> problems" and so on. 
> The thread started because someone was having some
> NFS issues and it
> related to a mail server and mail spools or homedirs
> residing on an NFS
> mount and some difficulty arrived.  I presented a
> tiny bit of evidence
> about NFS performance as did some others about it's
> merits.  The
> response I got seemed completely off topic, so I
> wanted to show some
> examples where NFS is used in the corporate world,
> and if it's not
> considered optimal,  I'd like to see a "better way"
> to do it.  AS I'm
> always looking to learn new stuff.
> 
> Example 1. NFS for remote bootable clients.
> Lets say you have a school. Schools are notoriously
> low budget , thanks
> to many things these days, so some places are
> turning to using thin
> clients in their computer labs, and Linux is ideally
> suited for the
> task (free, easy to configure, very flexible, wide
> variety of
> choices/applications).  You have a stack of old PC's
> (let's day
> PII-400's), you have next to no budget for any
> replacement parts like
> disks and half your machiens are in the 5-8 year old
> range and have
> dead drives, what to do?  Remote boot them, either
> via a etherboot
> floppy, or via a PXE Nic to a central cerver, using
> software like
> PXE's, LTSP (Linux Term Server Project), or Knoppix
> Terminal server. 
> It's simple,  but all of them rely on NFS as shared
> filesystem, why? 
> because it's 
> 1. Clean (simple to setup) 
> 2. Easy
> 3. Built into the OS distribution, 
> 4. (optional, not always used) The kernel can
> directly use a NFS
> filesystem for it's root FS,  it cannot do this with
> ANY other network
> filesystem without patching of the kernel (which is
> hard for someone
> who hasn't done it before)
> 
> Without using NFS these projects would be stunted
> and held back.  NFS
> (as far as I can see it) is the optimal tool for the
> job in the above
> case.
> 
> 2. Corporate home dirs (unix shop). 
> One of the places I worked (Valeo, Rochester, 4+
> years) was a mixed bag
> shop,  windows AD, Unix, Linux etc.  They had a
> large number of unix 
> users, about 130 spread across two locations across
> a WAN link (SGI's
> mostly, though some HP and linux)  All of the Unix
> hosts made use of
> shared storage locations available via NFS from a
> Network Appliance
> Filer (big fileserver appliance that was used fot
> NFS and samba).  The
> users used it for homedirs, application dirs,etc and
> even mounted
> locations from over 250miles away (detroit area) via
> NFS over the WAN
> link, and it worked flawlessly. 
> 
> 3. Small business backup server
>  Another place I've doen a little helping out from
> time to time, is
> asuccessfull computer business,  They have a server
> with a bunch of
> disk tucked away in some hidden part of their
> office, and a full
> netwrok throughout.  All servers backup to it via a
> cron job dump based
> system (using "dump" to dump to files stored on the
> NFS server).  It
> work great, is fast, allows easy recovery anyplace
> on the LAN and keeps
> things centralized.  NFS in this case makes the
> filesystem essentially
> transparent.  They have a large pool of diskspace
> that can be mounted
> anywhere anytime on the LAN.
> 
> 4. Remote server installation
> I had to do an install of 9 mid-High end Linux
> servers (4-16CPU, up to
> 64GB ram boxes) as part of my current job earlier
> this month.  They're
> a Redhat Enterprise shop, and I was limited by them
> to using an older
> version (EL3) Their constraints were simple. Get it
> done fast, and get
> it done right. IT helped that they required minimal
> customization. The
> fastest way I know to get a RH Box built is by using
> Kickstart, and a
> remote boot.  Remote boot wasn't possible for their
> datacenter, as
> DHCP/Bootp was not allowed, so I used the floppy
> method (faster than
> burning up custom CD's) Also note that these servers
> were located north
> of Boston Mass, and I was still in buffalo and
> everything needed to be
> done via remote. (had a guy onsite to insert
> floppies for initial
> bootup). A NFS server was setup (super EASY), as
> every linux box that
> had it installed via default as it was IN USE there.
> The ISO images for
> RHEL3 was put in place as well as kickstart config
> files tailored to
> each machine. I had a tech boot the machines off of
> floppy, while I
> watched them through a remote IP KVM (two disks were
> needed to do the
> NFS boot (the drive disk was necessary for gigabit
> ethernet support). 
> From the point where the second floppy was read and
> the install started
> to the time it finished and the machine was ready to
> reboot took 13
> minutes installing via NFS. It installed about 3GB
> worth of data, so it
> wasn't an "everything" install.  Yes I could have
> done an FTP or HTTP
> install,  but those require significant more setup
> time, as there were
> not FTP servers or http servers available for use
> for that task,  but
> nearly ever unix/linux box in the datacenter (and
> there's about 185
> systems in there) could have been used for NFS.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed my long winded uses of NFS.  If
> anyone knows a
> better way that's more efficient, uses less CPU and
> is easier to do, 
> please respond.
> 
> So NFS is used in the real world, even though it's
> been around a long
> time (which is a GOOD thing),  it's alive and well,
> and has more uses
> than you might think.
> 
> Apologies for all the spelling and gramatical
> errors.
> 
> -- David Andruczyk
> Unix/Linux Systems Administrator
> IBM Global Services
> 
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