NFS

[Adam McDougall]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Edward Glowacki wrote:

> On 26 Jan 2001, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> > Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu> writes:
> >
> > > An NFS server has a dual-port ethernet adapter.  Etherchannel
> > > (combining two ethernet links into one) is not supported on the
> > > server end, so it isn't a viable solution.  Each port now requires
> > > its own IP address.  There are N clients trying to use the server.
> > > Excluding manually setting N/2 clients to point to each IP, and
> > > excluding spending big $$$ on a load balancer, is there any good
> > > solution for spreading the load to take advantage of the second
> > > ethernet port on the server?
> >
> > Round-robin DNS?
>
> We thought of that too, but the question is, how does NFS handle
> host name lookups?  I would assume it would do it when it tries to
> mount the drive the first time, then use the IP from there on out,
> otherwise it would be bombarding the DNS server with requests.
> However, if there is a happy middle ground, say re-lookup every
> hour or something, it would probably work pretty good to do it with
> DNS.

I am not an NFS expert but from my use it can get pretty pissed off at
certain network changes, I doubt it would be reconnecting to a different
ip after the initial mount until unmount.  Also it depends on your needs
and physical connections,  I assume you are using two 100bt cards to get
more than 100bt speed out of a single server, connected to a switch with
gigabit uplink?

Also, for load balancing, maybe some solution with an automount daemon on
the clients would be more suave, but would require configuration of N
clients.  Fortunately, remote unix administration is scriptable if the
clients are mostly homogenous!