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

Thu May 4 09:00:19 EDT 2006

Tho this is a couple days out dated and i have not read anyone's reply, 
I do have to say I used NFS everyday. It is used in a large scale 
operations. My webhost uses NFS as a way to spread there opeartions over 
specialzed servers. Server for mysql, another one for mail, another for 
web etc etc. The web and mail are nfs so that your maildir can be saved 
on your localunix user on your mainbox but really be somewhere else, 
they NFS more parts for backups and for there staff to have 1 main 
homedir. I have never seen a problem with NFS, but there network must be 
optimized for this.
http://wolfnix.net/phpsysinfo/ just shows the sysinfo ignore the errors 
I belive that is because of safemode or there kernal settings.

Josh

David J. Andruczyk wrote:

>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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