[gpfsug-discuss] SMB server on GPFS clients and Followsymlinks

valleru at cbio.mskcc.org valleru at cbio.mskcc.org
Wed May 16 04:05:50 BST 2018


Thank you for the detailed answer Andrew.
I do understand that anything above the posix level will not be supported by IBM and might lead to scaling/other issues.
We will start small, and discuss with IBM representative on any other possible efforts.

Regards,
Lohit

On May 15, 2018, 10:39 PM -0400, Andrew Beattie <abeattie at au1.ibm.com>, wrote:
> Lohit,
>
> There is no technical reason why if you use the correct licensing that you can't publish a Posix fileystem using external Protocol tool rather than CES
> the key thing to note is that if its not the IBM certified solution that IBM support stops at the Posix level and the protocol issues are your own to resolve.
>
> The reason we provide the CES environment is to provide a supported architecture to deliver protocol access,  does it have some limitations - certainly
> but it is a supported environment.  Moving away from this moves the risk onto the customer to resolve and maintain.
>
> The other part of this, and potentially the reason why you might have been warned off using an external solution is that not all systems provide scalability and resiliency
> so you may end up bumping into scaling issues by building your own environment --- and from the sound of things this is a large complex environment.  These issues are clearly defined in the CES stack and are well understood.  moving away from this will move you into the realm of the unknown -- again the risk becomes yours.
>
> it may well be worth putting a request in with your local IBM representative to have IBM Scale protocol development team involved in your design and see what we can support for your requirements.
>
>
> Regards,
> Andrew Beattie
> Software Defined Storage  - IT Specialist
> Phone: 614-2133-7927
> E-mail: abeattie at au1.ibm.com
>
>
> > ----- Original message -----
> > From: valleru at cbio.mskcc.org
> > Sent by: gpfsug-discuss-bounces at spectrumscale.org
> > To: gpfsug main discussion list <gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org>
> > Cc:
> > Subject: Re: [gpfsug-discuss] SMB server on GPFS clients and Followsymlinks
> > Date: Wed, May 16, 2018 12:25 PM
> >
> > Thanks Stephen,
> >
> > Yes i do acknowledge, that it will need a SERVER license and thank you for reminding me.
> >
> > I just wanted to make sure, from the technical point of view that we won’t face any issues by exporting a GPFS mount as a SMB export.
> >
> > I remember, i had seen in documentation about few years ago that it is not recommended to export a GPFS mount via Third party SMB services (not CES). But i don’t exactly remember why.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Lohit
> >
> > On May 15, 2018, 10:19 PM -0400, Stephen Ulmer <ulmer at ulmer.org>, wrote:
> > > Lohit,
> > >
> > > Just be aware that exporting the data from GPFS via SMB requires a SERVER license for the node in question. You’ve mentioned client a few times now. :)
> > >
> > > --
> > > Stephen
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > On May 15, 2018, at 6:48 PM, Lohit Valleru <valleru at cbio.mskcc.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Thanks Christof.
> > > >
> > > > The usecase is just that : it is easier to have symlinks of files/dirs from various locations/filesystems rather than copying or duplicating that data.
> > > >
> > > > The design from many years was maintaining about 8 PB of NFS filesystem with thousands of symlinks to various locations and the same directories being exported on SMB.
> > > >
> > > > Now we are migrating most of the data to GPFS keeping the symlinks as they are.
> > > > Thus the need to follow symlinks from the GPFS filesystem to the NFS Filesystem.
> > > > The client wants to effectively use the symlinks design that works when used on Linux but is not happy to hear that he will have to redo years of work just because GPFS does not support the same.
> > > >
> > > > I understand that there might be a reason on why CES might not support this, but is it an issue if we run SMB server on the GPFS clients to expose a read only or read write GPFS mounts?
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > Lohit
> > > >
> > > > On May 15, 2018, 6:32 PM -0400, Christof Schmitt <christof.schmitt at us.ibm.com>, wrote:
> > > > > > I could use CES, but CES does not support follow-symlinks outside respective SMB export.
> > > > >
> > > > > Samba has the 'wide links' option, that we currently do not test and support as part of the mmsmb integration. You can always open a RFE and ask that we support this option in a future release.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Follow-symlinks is a however a hard-requirement  for to follow links outside GPFS filesystems.
> > > > >
> > > > > I might be reading this wrong, but do you actually want symlinks that point to a file or directory outside of the GPFS file system? Could you outline a usecase for that?
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > >
> > > > > Christof Schmitt || IBM || Spectrum Scale Development || Tucson, AZ
> > > > > christof.schmitt at us.ibm.com  ||  +1-520-799-2469    (T/L: 321-2469)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > ----- Original message -----
> > > > > > From: valleru at cbio.mskcc.org
> > > > > > Sent by: gpfsug-discuss-bounces at spectrumscale.org
> > > > > > To: gpfsug main discussion list <gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org>
> > > > > > Cc:
> > > > > > Subject: [gpfsug-discuss] SMB server on GPFS clients and Followsymlinks
> > > > > > Date: Tue, May 15, 2018 3:04 PM
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hello All,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Has anyone tried serving SMB export of GPFS mounts from a SMB server on GPFS client? Is it supported and does it lead to any issues?
> > > > > > I understand that i will not need a redundant SMB server configuration.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I could use CES, but CES does not support follow-symlinks outside respective SMB export. Follow-symlinks is a however a hard-requirement  for to follow links outside GPFS filesystems.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > > Lohit
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
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