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Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol that allows users to access files over a network. NFS is a common choice for storage domains because it is simple to implement and manage. PowerFlex meets the performance and scalability requirements for Oracle Linux KVM as its NAS implementation can scale up to 16 nodes, supports both NFS 3 and 4.1, and delivers superior performance when matched with a high performance, low latency network.
NFS is a good option in Oracle environments for shared homes and can also provide a storage domain for holding ISOs and other shared files between hosts. For NFS, the permissions and the ownership of the share must be altered so that Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager can use it in a storage domain. The available ownership and permissions on the PowerFlex NFS export are limited and do not meet the strict requirements of Oracle Linux KVM. It is necessary, therefore, to manipulate the share either on an existing Oracle Linux KVM node, or on a separate host altogether. In the following example, a Linux host was configured for the sole purpose of meeting the prerequisites of NFS storage. This example sets up the storage for an NFS mount named ovirt_engine.
Start by creating an NFS file system and mount on the PowerFlex system. This file system can be of any size but should have default access of Read/Write, allow Root. The summary of such a file system is shown in Figure 20.
Figure 20. PowerFlex NFS file system and mount
Now, to allow the storage domain to use the PowerFlex NFS file system, a few modifications must be made to folder ownership. Take the following steps to create a folder in the NFS file system with the correct ownership (vdsm:kvm) and permissions (0755) for the storage domain.
On most Linux implementations, the kvm group exists with the id of 36; however, the vdsm user will not. If another user on the box is already assigned the id of 36, use another host. If the user or group already exists with the correct uid, skip the step.
groupadd kvm -g 36
useradd vdsm -u 36 -g kvm
mkdir /engine_install
mount -t nfs 10.228.246.141:/engine_install /engine_install
cd /engine_install
mkdir engine_install
chmod 0755 engine_install
chown 36:36 engine_install (or chown vdsm:kvm engine_install)
cd /
umount /engine_install
Once these steps are complete, the user can add the NFS storage domain using the export path of: 10.228.246.141:/engine_install/engine_install because that second directory will have the correct permissions that the wizard requires.