AIR Wiki: NFS Home Directories

NFS Home Directories

Below a short description of the NFS mounted home directories will be given.

Server

The NFS home directory servers are "vangogh0"" and "rembrandt0". They can be used mixed at both the Rembrandt and VanGogh clusters. Home directories to be NFS mounted should be created under the following root directories:

/disk2/home/vangogh0 at "vangogh0".
/home/rembrandt0 at "rembrandt0".

These directories should be read-write exported in /etc/exports to all hosts in the .uva.netherlight.nl domain as follows:

/disk2/home/vangogh0 *.uva.netherlight.nl(rw) at "vangogh0".
/home/rembrandt0 *.uva.netherlight.nl(rw) at "rembrandt0".

To be able to mount the home directories also access for portmap and mountd should be arranged in /etc/hosts.allow to the same subnet at both hosts:

portmap: 195.169.124.32/255.255.255.224
rpc.mountd: 195.169.124.32/255.255.255.224

Note that the numerical form is required, at least for portmap.

Clients

Home directories to be NFS mounted should be defined below the root directory /home/vangogh0, or /home/rembrandt0, depending which home directory server should be used. When the home directory of a user User is accessed the automount server amd mounts:

vangogh0:/disk2/home/vangogh0 on /amd/vangogh0/home for server "vangogh0"
rembrandt0:/home/rembrandt0 on /amd/rembrandt0/home for server "rembrandt0"

and creates a symbolic link /home/nfs/User -> /amd/home/User.

At the VanGogh cluster the default automount point have been changed from /.automount into /amd by replacing in the configuration file /etc/amd.conf the line

auto_dir = /.automount

into

auto_dir = /amd

In this way the automount point at the RedHat 9 VanGogh cluster is equal to that of the Debian 3.1 Rembrandt cluster.

The coniguration of this way of automount mapping has been defined in the configuration files:

/usr/share/am-utils/auto_home_Server for the Rembrandt cluster.
/etc/amd.Server.home for the VanGogh cluster.

However, their content is in both cases identical. To NFS mount "vangogh0" the configuration is:

#
# Automount home directories from "vangogh0". Automount point: "/home/vangogh0".
#
# Mount "vangogh0:/disk2/home/vangogh0" on "${autodir}/vangogh0/home" for all
# keys "${key}" such that: "${autodir}/vangogh0/home/${key}" =>
# "vangogh0:/disk2/home/vangogh0/{$key}".
#
* -opts:=rw,grpid,nosuid \
type:=nfs;rhost:=vangogh0;fs:=${autodir}/vangogh0/home;rfs:=/disk2/home/vangogh0;sublink:=${key}

To NFS mount "rembrandt0" the configuration is:

#
# Automount home directories from "rembrandt0". Automount point:
# "/home/rembrandt0".
#
# Mount "rembrandt0:/home/rembrandt0" on "${autodir}/rembrandt0/home" for all
# keys "${key}" such that: "${autodir}/rembrandt0/home/${key}" =>
# "rembrandt0:/home/rembrandt0/{$key}".
#
* -opts:=rw,grpid,nosuid \
type:=nfs;rhost:=rembrandt0;fs:=${autodir}/rembrandt0/home;rfs:=/home/rembrandt0;sublink:=${key}

At the Rembrandt cluster the mapping from mountpoint to configuration file is defined in the file /etc/default/am-utils with the single configuration line:

AM_UTILS_MAP_OTHERS='/home/vangogh0 /usr/share/am-utils/auto_home_vangogh0 /home/rembrandt0 /usr/share/am-utils/auto_home_rembrandt0'

The recommended way of changing this is with the command dpkg-reconfigure am-utils.

At the VanGogh cluster the mapping from mountpoint to configuration file is defined in the file /etc/sysconfig/amd with the single configuration line:

MOUNTPTS='/home/vangogh0 /etc/amd.vangogh0.home /home/rembrandt0 /etc/amd.rembrandt0.home'