| Scyld ClusterWare HPC: Administrator's Guide | ||
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File systems on a cluster consist of two types of file systems, local file systems and network file systems. The file /etc/fstab describes the filesystems mounted on the master node, and the file /etc/beowulf/fstab describes the filesystems mounted on each compute node. You may also create node-specific /etc/beowulf/fstab.N files, where N is a node number.
Local file systems are the file systems that exist locally on each machine. In the Scyld ClusterWare setup, the master node has a local file system, typically ext3, and each node also has a local file system. The local file systems are used for storing data that is local to the machines.
Network file systems are used so that files can be shared across the cluster and every node in the cluster can see the exact same set of files. The default network file system for Scyld ClusterWare is NFS. NFS allows the contents of a directory on the server (by default the master node) to be accessed by the clients (the compute nodes). The default Scyld ClusterWare setup has the /home directory exported through NFS so that all the user home directories can be accessed on the compute nodes. Additionally, various other directories are mounted by default, as specified by /etc/beowulf/fstab or by a node-specific fstab.N.
Note that root's home directory is not in /home, and thus cannot access its home directory on the compute nodes. This should not be a problem, as normal compute jobs should not be run as "root".
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