Re: [cNFS-Users] Hiding files to clients

[Bernd S. <ber...@we...>]

On Saturday 09 August 2003 10:44, axlmac\@inwind\.it wrote:
> Hi all clusterNFS users,
>   I decide to use cluserNFS for my purposes in creating a cluster of Pc for
> parallel programming. I note cNFS is more flexible and manageable than the
> classic nfs daemon. By default cNFS shares all files.I think it is problem
> when OS (like linux) uses files as flags to remember it that something
> happens or not.
> In practice:
> I shared the entire root partion of the server to the clients (I have
> omogeneous PCs). Each time a client starts, it looks for /.autofsck (the
> file exists between the mount action of this filesystems and correspect
> umount of the same one).
> If it finds out it a force check is performed on that filesystem.
> The problem is that file is shared about all server and clients!
> The result is clients performe check everytime they start because server
> created it. How (and this is, finally, my question) can I hide files to
> clients?
>
> Have I change the behaviour of master node forcing it to manage a
> /.autofsck$$HOST=MASTER$$ instead of /.autofsck so client never will see
> it?
> This case I must controle all OS script where /.autofsck is mentioned and I
> would not correct files of my distrbution (RH 8.0)
>
> Did you encounter the same problem? How did you resolv it?
>
> Thanks to everybody who will help me.
>
> Alex Macuz
>

Hello Alex,

I suggest to use the cvs-version, since the behaviour of the $$CREATE=IP$$ tag 
has changed there (actually a side effect of making the CREATE-tag more 
reliable). Just an example:

/etc/test
/etc/test$$CREATE=IP$$

Using the non-cvs-Version, the clients still would see /etc/test, using the 
cvs-version, the file simply doesn't exist for the clients, unless there are 
client specific files as /etc/test$$IP=x.y.z$$.

Also I don't know how much you depend on high availability. In our group all 
workstations are used for usual work (programming, writing, etc.) but also 
for our calculations. So we can't reboot very often, in fact we only reboot 
one or two times a year. Using only ClusterNFS for this pupose wasn't 
reliable enough and furthermore rather slow. So we are exporting the hole 
root-fs by knfsd and additionally only /etc and /var by ClusterNFS. This has 
proven to be very very stable and also much faster than pure CNFSD, but also 
requires some knowledge about initrd's and nfs- and rpc-ports.
I'm planning to write a HOWTO about our Cluster, but so far didn't have the 
time to do so. Just tell me, if you would like to know deeper insights.

Hope it helps,
	Bernd