RE: Explanation of NFS and other similar features/tools -- MIDRANGE-L

Aaron,

If you're going over the internal virtual LAN as opposed to out to the
network and back again I doubt there will be a performance difference
between partitions vs. on a single partition. (Assuming of course both
partitions have good performance to start with)

If you set up the virtual LAN between the partitions correctly you will be
approaching backplane speeds with it. Close enough that you would not
notice the difference.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Aaron
Bartell
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2016 11:15 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Explanation of NFS and other similar features/tools

From your link: "When mounting over the local file system..."

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. So my use case *is* valid. I've not tested
NFS from one LPAR to another, though I'd expect that to be slower and
wouldn't have done the same use case (mapped a dir for the purposes of
running binaries and loading libxxx[.a|.so] files).

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 10:48 AM, Vernon Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

:) I don't think one can conclude this - NFS is defined in several RFCs.
On the IBM i, the server is implemented by the QNFSNFSD job, client by
the QNFSBIOD - those are just separate jobs that can run at the same time.

I just read this in a nice KB article from IBM at
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1016376 (IBM NFS
Concepts and Troubleshooting). Seems a good starting point, so that we
don't have to make guesses.

If you do see a performance problem locally that you don't see when
using NFS between a couple IBM i LPARs or between the IBM i and a
Linux box, then a PMR is in order.

HTH
Vern

On 8/4/2016 10:25 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:

Thanks for that, Charles. The end point I'll make is NFS wasn't
created with local mounts in mind**. Linux mount was created with both

in mind.

**If it was, then there needs to be some performance tweaks applied
to defaults for it to be viable(opinion).

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 10:12 AM, Charles Wilt
<charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I'd disagree...

On both IBM i and Linnux, MOUNT is used to mount both local and
remote file systems.

Linux mount supports both NFS and SMB as protocols for remote file
systems.

IBM i mount supports just NFS. SMB support is provided by the QNTC
file system.

So the difference you saw wasn't IBM i vs Linux mount, but local vs
remote.

Charles

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 11:00 AM, Aaron Bartell
<aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

One more question - are you talking about the IBM i as an NFS client
or

as

an NFS server?

The IBM i was playing both in my scenario. An NFS definition was
created outside of chroot, and the mount destination/mapping was
created inside chroot. I dug a little into the Linux mount(n1)
command and see it

doesn't

focus on the 'N' of NFS (specifically, network). That would be my
guess
for why NFS is so slow in my scenario. IBM i's NFS would be like
Linux
mount+samba.

n1 - http://linux.die.net/man/8/mount

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 9:53 AM, Vernon Hamberg <
vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wrote:

Aaron

One more question - are you talking about the IBM i as an NFS
client or

as

an NFS server?

Thanks
Vern

On 8/4/2016 8:06 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:

I'd love to expand on it if I was knowledgeable about it, but I am

not. I

only have results of a single scenario that caused it to not work
for

our

needs. I'd love to learn that the speed can be addressed, but I
don't

have
the time (currently) to dig into it and have instead resorted to
less expensive means (buying disk vs. cpu).

It's entirely possible that IBM's under-the-covers implementation
is similar to Linux and it's simply the IFS being slow (and
consuming

mass

CPU

in the process) that's the issue.

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 8:00 AM, Charles Wilt
<charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Aaron,

Care to expand on that? What's different?

I was under the impression that the IBM i's NFS was the same as
Linux/Unix NFS.

Charles

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Aaron Bartell <

aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Drawbacks: It's a little more setup. And learning the options
of

EXPORTFS and MOUNT is a curve.

One more drawback that caused me to stop using them in
significant fashion... NFS is CPU intensive when used in an IFS
I/O heavy

scenario

(i.e. mapping Node.js runtime). I don't have a full understanding

of

how

NFS works under the covers but suffice to say I learned to not
put

it

in

a

similar camp of the Linux "mount" command (which is how I was
using

it,

right or wrong).

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 7:28 AM, Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There are two parts to NFS. The client, and the server.

If you're familiar with QNTC then you are aware that you can
do a

WRKLNK

'/QNTC/mypcserver/mypcshare' and look at shares on various PC's.

This

would be a client.

You can also create a 'share' using IBM i Navigator that PC's
can

access.

This would be a server.

Both QNTC and shares are comparable, but different, than NFS.
There are issues with QNTC that make some people tend to shy
away

from

it.

You use EXPORTFS (since EXPORT was already used in binder
language)

to

serve up a directory.

You use MOUNT from an IBM i client to consume what some server

exported.

Other open systems, and even old proprietary legacy systems
like Windows, also support NFS as a client and a server.

Drawbacks: It's a little more setup. And learning the
options of EXPORTFS and MOUNT is a curve.
Pros: It works. Unlike QNTC to a system with numerous shares

defined

that are multiple characters long, with many of the shares having

the

first x number of characters identical.

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko
Dept 1600 Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755 http://www.dekko.com

From: Darryl Freinkel <dhfreinkel@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <

midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: 08/04/2016 08:07 AM

Subject: Explanation of NFS and other similar

features/tools

Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

I have always seen these but never had a need to use them or
so I

thought.

I do not have a need right now.

What and how are these tools intended to be used?

Reading a current thread on the NFS, I got curious. To date I
have

simply

used the IFS root extensively.

TIA

Darryl Freinkel
iPad
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