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= Mounting NFS on Cluster Nodes =

This section explains how to mount the shared /export directory on all compute nodes, login node, and the master node in a Slurm cluster.

== 1. For Compute Nodes (Bare Metal or VMs) ==

=== a. Install NFS Client Packages ===
<pre> apt install -y nfs-common </pre>

=== b. Create Mount Point ===
<pre> mkdir /export </pre>

=== c. Verify NFS Export from Master ===
<pre> showmount -e master # OR showmount -e master-ib </pre>

=== d. Configure Persistent Mount in /etc/fstab ===

Add the following line to /etc/fstab:
<pre> <master-node-name>:/export /export nfs defaults,nofail,soft,bg 0 0 </pre>

'''Notes:'''

* Use nofail to allow booting even if NFS is not available.

* Use soft and bg to ensure mounting happens in the background and retries without blocking the boot.

* If using InfiniBand, replace <master-node-name> with the corresponding InfiniBand hostname (e.g., master-ib).

* You can optionally add the async mount option to improve performance (at the cost of consistency), depending on your HPC workload requirements.

=== e. Mount All Entries ===
<pre> mount -a </pre>

== 2. For Containers (slurm-login1, slurm-master) on Infra Node ==

Since the login node and master node are LXD containers running on the infra (NFS) node, we do not use NFS clients to mount /export. Instead, use LXD disk device passthrough from the host (infra node):

'''Steps (Run from Infra Node):'''

=== a. Enable Privileged Container ===
<pre> lxc config set slurm-login1 security.privileged true </pre>

=== b. Restart Container ===
<pre> lxc stop slurm-login1 lxc start slurm-login1 </pre>

=== c. Attach /export/home to Container ===
<pre> lxc config device add slurm-login1 export_home disk source=/export/home path=/export/home </pre>

Repeat similar steps for slurm-master and any other container that needs access to /export/home.

'''Note:'''

* This ensures that containers running on the infra node share the same /export/home directory via direct host path mapping instead of NFS mount.

* This method is faster and avoids networking overhead between containers and host.

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