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Migrate from NFS Kernel Server to NFS-Ganesha server under CentOS Stream 9

This article is to show how to migrate from the NFS kernel server to the NFS-Ganesha server under CentOS Stream 9. The most important thing for migrating from one program to another program is how much downtime will be and what is expected to be done by the clients. In this case, what the clients are needed to do when NFS-Ganesha is used for the server?

Here are the main points when migrating from NFS Kernel Server to the NFS-Ganesha:

The nfs-tuils and nfs-ganesha packages and in general, the two software, are perfectly fine installed on the same system. There are no conflicts when NFS Kernel Server and the NFS-Ganesha server are installed at the same time on the same system.
The clients, do not need to do anything, except remount the NFS mounts.
It should be installed a new community repository by installing the centos-release-nfs-ganesha5 package. The Special Interest Groups (SIG) maintains the repository and the group is within the CentOS community

For installation of NFS-Ganesha and a detailed information check out the older article on the subject – Simple export of a ext4 directory with NFS Ganesha 3.5 server in CentOS 8 with SELinux enforcing, Simple export of a ext4 directory with NFS Ganesha 3.5 server in CentOS 8 without SELinux and Create and export a GlusterFS volume with NFS-Ganesha in CentOS 8

Prerequisite – NFS Kernel Configuration

NFS Kernel Server is installed with nfs-utils packages (and its dependencies) and it has the following simple configuration:

[root@srv ~]# cat /etc/exports
/mnt/storage           192.168.0.0/24(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)

And here are the NFS services on the system:

[root@srv ~]# systemctl |grep nfs
  proc-fs-nfsd.mount                                         loaded active mounted   NFSD configuration filesystem
  var-lib-nfs-rpc_pipefs.mount                               loaded active mounted   RPC Pipe File System
  nfs-idmapd.service                                         loaded active running   NFSv4 ID-name mapping service
  nfs-mountd.service                                         loaded active running   NFS Mount Daemon
  nfs-server.service                                         loaded active exited    NFS server and services
  nfsdcld.service                                            loaded active running   NFSv4 Client Tracking Daemon
  nfs-client.target                                          loaded active active    NFS client services

The server’s firewall has been tuned for the NFS kernel server, so no need to edit anything in the firewall for the NFS-Ganesha server.
Keep on reading!

Simple export of a ext4 directory with NFS Ganesha 3.5 server in CentOS 8 with SELinux enforcing

In fact, this article is a continuation of the previous NFS Ganesha article – Simple export of an ext4 directory with NFS Ganesha 3.5 server in CentOS 8 without SELinux because it has the same purpose to export a directory residing on an ext4 file system under CentOS 8 Stream, but this time the SELinux is enabled and it is in enforcing mode! There is a need for this additional article because the SELinux is not enabled in many user configurations (despite being wrong!) and the SELinux configuration may add complexity to the first article, which could lead to misleading thoughts. The previous article might be a little bit more detailed, so the reader could check it, too.
It’s worth mentioning the key points of NFS-Ganesha:

a user-mode file sharing server
supports NFS 3, 4.x and 9P
using plugins for different file systems
CentOS Storage Special Interest Group offers a file repository with NFS-Ganesha server
supports file systems like ext4, xfs, brtfs, zfs and more. There are sample configurations: https://github.com/phdeniel/nfs-ganesha/tree/master/src/config_samples
supports cluster and/or distributed file systems like GlusterFS, Ceph, GPFS, HPSS, Lustre
Current version 3.5 and it is included in the official SIG CentOS Storage Special Interest Group repository.

This article assumes the reader has a clean CentOS 8 Stream installation with SELinux in enforcing mode.

STEP 1) Install the repository and NFS-Ganesha software

NFS-Ganesha 3 packages are from the CentOS Storage SIG repository, which is a good repository and may be trusted.

dnf install -y centos-release-nfs-ganesha30
dnf install -y nfs-ganesha nfs-ganesha-vfs nfs-ganesha-selinux

STEP 2) Configuration for exporting a directory.

There are two files under /etc/ganesha/:

ganesha.conf
vfs.conf

ganesha.conf includes global configuration and NFS share configuration. Each export path begins with the keyword EXPORT followed by a block ebraced by brackets {}.
vfs.conf includes a simple example for the VFS plugin, but this configuration file is not used by the NFS Ganesha server. It is just a sample file.
Here is a simple configuration, which exports /mnt/storage with Read/Write permissions to a single IP. Just add at the end of the file /etc/ganesha/ganesha.conf contains:

 
EXPORT
{
        Export_Id = 2;
        Path = /mnt/storage1;
        Pseudo = /mnt/storage1;
        Protocols = 3,4;
        Access_Type = RW;
        Squash = None;
        FSAL
        {
                Name = VFS;
        }
        CLIENT
        {
                Clients = 192.168.0.12;
        }
}

STEP 3) Start the server and mount the exported directory. Configure the firewall.

Start the server, enable the service to start on boot and then configure the firewall to pass the NFS requests:

systemctl start nfs-ganesha
systemctl enable nfs-ganesha
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=nfs
firewall-cmd --reload

Keep on reading!

Simple export of a ext4 directory with NFS Ganesha 3.5 server in CentOS 8 without SELinux

NFS Ganesha is a user-mode file sharing server, which supports NFS 3 and 4.x versions and 9P. NFS Ganesha has several interesting plugins that support exporting files from the cluster and distributed file systems like Ceph and Glusterfs Exporting a file system with NFS Ganesha is simple enough if you do not use SELinux or SELinux is in permissive mode!
This article is to show how to export a server’s directory using NFS protocol Just to note the NFS-Ganesha is tested and supports ext2/ext3/ext4, xfs, brtfs, zfs file systems as of version 3.5 (check the manual for xfs, brtfs and zfs exports – here are sample configurations for them https://github.com/phdeniel/nfs-ganesha/tree/master/src/config_samples). To be able to export a file directory the VFS Ganesha plugin is used. A clean install of minimal CentOS 8 Stream is used so the installation log may differ significantly from the user’s log but the user will see all the dependencies, which are required for this setup.