GlusterFS Client

Software

Installation

Install the glusterfs client.

apt-get install glusterfs-client

Mount Point

Create the mount point.

mkdir /srv/www

Volume File

A regular fstab entry with an IP-address for one of the GlusterFS servers can be added, but if that specific server is down when we attempt to mount the GlusterFS volume, then it will fail. Instead we will create a file that describes how to mount the volume.

mkdir /etc/glusterfs

Create the file /etc/glusterfs/www.vol and add the servers.

volume remote1
        type protocol/client
        option transport-type tcp
        option remote-host gluster01
        option remote-subvolume /srv/www/brick
end-volume
 
volume remote2
        type protocol/client
        option transport-type tcp
        option remote-host gluster02
        option remote-subvolume /srv/www/brick
end-volume
 
volume remote3
        type protocol/client
        option transport-type tcp
        option remote-host gluster03
        option remote-subvolume /srv/www/brick
end-volume

volume remote4
        type protocol/client
        option transport-type tcp
        option remote-host gluster04
        option remote-subvolume /srv/www/brick
end-volume

volume replicate
        type cluster/replicate
        subvolumes remote1 remote2 remote3 remote4
end-volume
 
volume writebehind
        type performance/write-behind
        option window-size 1MB
        subvolumes replicate
end-volume
 
volume cache
  type performance/io-cache
  option cache-size 64MB
  subvolumes writebehind
end-volume

Note that if one of the GlusterFS servers is an arbiter, then it should also be added to the volume file.

Modules

Add the fuse modules to /etc/modules. If you do not add this, then the mountpoint will not be mounted automatically when the client is rebooted.

fuse

Network

The default network setting is allow-hotplug. That means that the init process will continue and the interface will get an IP-address eventually. That is not good if we are expecting glusterfs-client to mount. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and replace

allow-hotplug eth0

with

auto eth0

fstab

Add the following to /etc/fstab.

/etc/glusterfs/www.vol /srv/www glusterfs defaults,_netdev,rw 0 0

Mount the Volume

mount /srv/www