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Getting Started Guide for beegfs_client

The client role can be used to install the BeeGFS client on a node and, if requested, can mount one or more beeGFS file systems (or the same file system multiple times). The role can also unmount one or more BeeGFS file systems if requested. The following instructions will guide a user through creating the playbook, inventory, and host variables files neccesary to configure clients for access to their BeeGFS storage cluster.

Requirements

  • Adhere to the requirements outlined in this collection's README prior to following these instructions.
  • To configure NTP on the client servers during deployment, you need to install the geerlingguy.ntp role to your control node using the following command: ansible-galaxy role install geerlingguy.ntp
  • The BeeGFS client does not currently support SELinux so it must be disabled before running the role.
  • The firewall ports used by the BeeGFS client for communication must not be blocked. The default TCP/UDP ports can be found here, and optionally overridden as part of mounting BeeGFS using this role (see beegfs_client_config below).
  • When installing the BeeGFS client to Ubuntu, the ca-certificates package must be installed, or an error like the following will occur when attempting to add the BeeGFS repository using apt: Certificate verification failed: The certificate is NOT trusted. The certificate chain uses expired certificate. Could not handshake: Error in the certificate verification. [IP: 178.254.21.65 443]. If you still get this error with ca-certificates installed try updating the package.

IMPORTANT: When using the BeeGFS client role to mount a BeeGFS filesystem backed by NetApp's shared-disk high availability solution, sysSessionChecksEnabled must be set to false in the beegfs_client_config for each mount point.This will prevent clients from reporting "remote I/O" errors if a storage service crashes and is restarted on another node. In addition, to prevent silent data corruption, sysSessionChecksEnabled: false must only be set when the underlying ext4/xfs filesystems used for BeeGFS management, metadata, and storage targets are mounted using the 'sync' option. By default, the beegfs_ha* roles in this collection mount targets in 'sync' mode, but there are options available to override this default behavior and deploy with the storage targets' 'sync' mode disabled. Read more about this requirement here.

beegfs_client_mounts:
  - sysMgmtdHost: <BeeGFS Management Server IP or Hostname>
    mount_point: /mnt/beegfs
    beegfs_client_config:
      sysSessionChecksEnabled: false

User Guide

The following instructions build on the BeeGFS HA Role's README. Before you can use this role to mount a BeeGFS filesystem to the client, you must first deploy a BeeGFS HA building block.

1. Navigate to the 'beegfs_client' Directory

From your Ansible control node, navigate to your project's beegfs_client subdirectory. For example:

cd ~/<project_name>/beegfs_client

If the beegfs_client directory does not exist, you can clone the playbooks files from NetApp's BeeGFS Collection by following the instructions from the BeeGFS HA building block [README]](../beegfs_ha_building_block/README.md#1-clone-the-playbooks-directory).

2. Create or Update Client Host Variables

In the host_vars directory, create a separate file for each BeeGFS client that you want to configure. Name the file according to the client as <hostname>.yml. Example host variable files are provided by default to assist with creating your environment. In the examples only the client's management IP address needs to be populated. Modify the host variable files or create new ones according to your environment.

3. Create or Update the Inventory File

From the beegfs_client directory, update the beegfs_client_inventory.yml file to match your environment, or alternatively, you can create a custom inventory file. Additional client variables can be found in the BeeGFS Client Role README.

4. Update the Password Configuration File

Modify the passwords.yml file in the beegfs_client/group_vars/all directory. Supply credentials in the required fields. It is not recommended to store these credentials in plain text. Use Ansible Vault to encrypt the passwords file.

5. Update the Playbook File

From the beegfs_client directory, located the beegfs_client_playbook.yml playbook file. Review the playbook and, if needed, update it according to your desired deployment settings.

6. Install the Client and Mount BeeGFS

Once you have configured the host variables, inventory, credentials, and playbook to match your environment, you can run the following command to install the client services and mount BeeGFS:

ansible-playbook -i beegfs_client_inventory.yml beegfs_client_playbook.yml

Note: If utilizing Ansible Vault, you must include the --ask-vault-pass parameter to the playbook command.

License

BSD

Maintainer Information

  • Christian Whiteside (@mcwhiteside)
  • Vu Tran (@VuTran007)