Help with Analyzing NFS Architecture in a Cluster Sharing a Home Directory Across Two Servers"

Question

I Am very confused because I am trying to understand the architecture without documentation,we have a NFS architecture of a cluster of PCs that share the same home directory ( Server1 is a Pc of a cluster ) and every user has a home in the Server 2 used for a specific purpose from the users. I've collected the following information from both servers:

Server 1:

Output of

cat /etc/exports

> /disk28 172.16.13.115(rw)  172.16.13.114(rw) ....etc

Output of showmount -e N/A

cat /etc/fstab > 172.16.15.20:/disk38 /disk38 nfs defaults,bg,rw 0 0 172.16.15.17:/disk36 /disk36 nfs defaults,bg,rw 0 0 ...etc

Server 2:

Output of

cat /etc/exports
>/home 172.16.14.86(rw) 172.16.37.221(rw) 172.16.11.30(rw) 172.16.11.51(rw) 172.16.37.222(rw) 172.16.37.219(rw) 172.16.37.253(rw) 172.16.10.154(rw) 172.16.11.219(rw) 172.16.12.16(rw) 172.16.12.20(rw) 172.16.12.32(rw) 172.16.12.40(rw) 172.16.12.125(rw) 172.16.12.126(rw) 172.16.12.127(rw)  ...etc

Output of

showmount -a
>All mount points on a.server:
172.16.11.219:/home
172.16.11.30:/home
172.16.11.51:/home
172.16.12.125:/home
172.16.12.126:/home
172.16.12.127:/home ...etc



cat /etc/fstab

>/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
none                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
none                    /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/hda                /media/cdrom            auto    pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

Now, I'd like to comprehend how these servers are configured to share the home directory and how the interaction between the cluster PCs and these NFS servers works. What specific details should I be looking for in these outputs to get a complete picture of the NFS architecture?

Thanks in advance for any help or insights you can provide. I'm willing to share the full outputs if needed.

Answer 1

fstab is only part of the story, you should look at the output of the mount command to see what is mounted right now.

Mounts can come about by various methods, for example autofs and systemd can both mount volumes without touching fstab.