[CentOS] Shearing file systems on the network

[John R Pierce]

Peter Blajev wrote:
> I have 4 systems and each one of them has a partition I'd like to be remotely 
> accessible on the other 3 systems.
>
> In other words System1 has Partition1. Systems 2,3,4 should be able to 
> remotely mount Partition1 from System1. Also System2 has Partition2. Then 
> systems 1,3,4 should be able to remotely mount Partition2 from System2 and so 
> on.
>
> I tried NFS and it works but only in the ideal world. If one of the systems 
> goes down the whole NFS cross-mounting makes the other systems somewhat 
> unstable. It's a known issue and I believe you guys are aware of it but I 
> just had to see it myself.
>
> What would you recommend? What is the best practice for doing that?
>
> Unfortunately SAN and NAS are not really an option due to some financial 
> restructions. I'm thinking SMB...? Would that work?
>   

if system 1 depends on system 2, AND system 2 depends on system 1, I 
dunno, but you're asking for problems.

the normal way people do this is to designate a SERVER, and have all the 
other systems mount data off this server.    the server should be 
designed and used to maximize uptime.


SMB is a Microsoft Windows protocol, and rather foreign to Unix/Linux, 
fine for linux<->windows use, but no good for linux<->linux.

NAS is simply a turnkey NFS fileserver.   

SAN is a block storage setup, and doesn't itself allow for sharing 
between systems, except in specific cluster configurations.     [SAN 
disks]--san---[server system]----NFS----[client systems]  would be what 
you'd end up with