Home > Storage > PowerStore > Databases and Data Analytics > Dell PowerStore: Oracle Best Practices > Oracle dNFS configuration file oranfstab
File oranfstab is optional. If it exists, it defines:
oranfstab can reside in either /etc or $ORACLE_HOME/dbs. If oranfstab resides in /etc, its contents will be global to all databases running on that server regardless of which $ORACLE_HOME the databases are running from. If oranfstab resides in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs, oranfstab is global to any database running from that ORACLE_HOME. If $ORACLE_HOME is shared between RAC nodes, all RAC databases running from the shared $ORACLE_HOME will use the same $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/oranfstab.
dNFS searches for mount entries in the following order and uses the first matching entry as the mount point:
If a database uses dNFS mount points configured in oranfstab, Oracle first verifies kNFS mount points by cross-checking entries in mtab and oranfstab. If a match does not exist, dNFS logs a message and fails to operate.
oranfstab provides dNFS with metadata to be able to perform multipathing. dNFS multipathing provides:
If any of these features are needed, file oranfstab is required.
When oranfstab is configured, dNFS automatically performs load balancing across all specified available channels in oranfstab. Also, if one channel fails, dNFS reissues I/O commands over any remaining available channel specified for that NAS server.
The following table shows the available parameters for oranfstab.
Directive/attribute | Description |
server | The name of the NAS server. If Kerberos authentication is used for the PowerStore NAS server, the value of server must be the fully qualified name of the NFS server. See Creating a NAS server and adding a link aggregation network . When KERBEROS is used, the value of server is used to create a service principal for Ticket Granting Service (TGS) requests from the Kerberos server. oranfstab may contain more than one server stanza. Note: When Kerberos is not used, Dell Technologies recommends setting this value to the name of the NAS server in PowerStore. However, the value can be any unique string of alphanumeric characters. For more information, see the Oracle documentation. |
local | A key:value entry. Key is local. Value is the IP address of an interface on the database server that should be used for dNFS data traffic. The operating system ifconfig command can be used to display the available interfaces and IP address configured on each interface. Up to four values of local can be supplied for each NAS server defined in oranfstab. A corresponding path value must exist for each local value. |
path | A key:value entry. Key is path. Value is the IP address of a bonded network interface on the PowerStore NAS server that will host the NFS shares serviced by dNFS on the database server. PowerStore Storage Manager can be used to display the available bonded network interface IP address. Up to four key:value entries of path can be supplied for each NAS server defined in oranfstab. A corresponding local value must exist for each path value. |
export | NFS export path from PowerStore NAS server. |
mount | The mount point of the NFS export on the database server. |
mnt_timeout | Optional. Number of seconds the dNFS client should wait for a successful mount before timing out. Default is 600. |
nfs_version | NFS protocol version used by the dNFS client. Valid values are: NFSv3, NFSv4, NFSv41, and pNFS. Default: NFSv3. PowerStore only supports NFSv3 and NFSv4, so do not configure Oracle dNFS to use parallel NFS (pNFS). |
security_default | Optional. Specifies the default (sys) security mode applicable for all the exported NFS server paths for a NAS server entry in oranfstab. The value of oranfstab attribute security defines the security level. |
security | Optional. The security level using Kerberos authentication protocol with the dNFS client. The value can be specified per export-mount pair. |
dontroute | Specifies that outgoing messages should not be routed by the operating system but instead sent using the IP address to which they are bound. See the note that follows this table. |
management | Directs the dNFS client to use the management interface for SNMP queries if SNMP is running on a separate management interface on the NAS server. Default: value of oranfstab server parameter. |
community | The community string for use in SNMP queries. Default: public. |
Note: dontroute is a POSIX option, which sometimes does not work on all Linux systems when multiple paths in the same subnet are used. Dell Technologies recommends investigating and testing the usage of dontroute and operating system static routes.
Figure 78 shows the oranfstab configuration used in this paper. For more oranfstab examples, see the Oracle documentation.