It’s hip2b2

Providing common shared storage is an important part of parallel computing. Being able to share files between compute nodes in a parallel cluster is key to getting a parallel job done. This is a follow-up article on configuring OpenMPI for Parallel Computing. You need to do this to get other nodes to play in your cluster. So, let’s get started.

For the Server:

1. Install necessary packages. This is to install the NFS packages and its dependencies such as portmapper.

   yum install nfs-utils nfs-utils-lib portmap
   

2. Install Dependencies. Ensure NFS-related services are started and start-up by default. These assume the RedHat-way of doing things. This will vary depending on your Linux distribution.

   /sbin/chkconfig portmap on
   /sbin/chkconfig nfs on
   /sbin/chkconfig nfslock on
   /sbin/service portmap start
   /sbin/service nfs start
   /sbin/service nfslock start
   

3. Share Drive. Configure the directory or drive you want to share and edit the /etc/exports file. Then inform NFS that you have created a shared drive.

   mkdir /share
   cat "/share *(rw, no_root_squash,sync)" >> /etc/exports
   exportfs -ra
   

4. Configure your security. This involves setting your hosts.allow and hosts.deny files. But, I prefer just setting the firewall. So edit your /etc/sysconfig/iptables file and add the following lines.

   -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp -s 10.11.81.0/24 --dport 2049 -j ACCEPT
   -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 10.11.81.0/24 --dport 2049 -j ACCEPT
   -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp -s 10.11.81.0/24 --dport 111 -j ACCEPT
   -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 10.11.81.0/24 --dport 111 -j ACCEPT
   

For the Client:

1. Install necessary packages. This is to install the NFS packages and its dependencies such as portmapper.

   yum install nfs-utils nfs-utils-lib portmap
   

2. Install Dependencies. Ensure NFS-related services are started and start-up by default. These assume the RedHat-way of doing things. This will vary depending on your Linux distribution.

   /sbin/chkconfig portmap on
   /sbin/chkconfig nfslock on
   /sbin/service portmap start
   /sbin/service nfslock start
   

3. Configure Filesystem Table. Edit your system’s fstab to ensure that this directory is mounted immediately on boot. Just as a warning make sure your uids across the systems are uniform.

   10.11.81.49:/share      /share       nfs        rw,exec       0 0
   

4. Mount drive. You can either reboot your system or type the following command:

   mount /share
   

That is it. Pretty simple right? Now you have a shared drive amongst the different machines in your parallel cluster to run your parallel computing programs.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 4:00 am and is filed under Academics, Parallel Computing, HPC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.