Troubleshooting

Improving NFS Performance on HPC Clusters with Dell Fluid Cache for DAS
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5. Install the Red Hat Scalable File System (XFS) packages that are part of RHEL 6.3 add-on.
xfsprogs-3.1.1-7.el6.x86_64 and xfsdump-3.0.4-2.el6.x86_64
6. Install at a minimum the “Server Instrumentation”, “Server Administrator Web Server” and
“Storage Management” components of Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
(OMSA) v7.1.2 on the
PowerEdge R720. Note that only v7.1.2 supports DFC at the time of writing. A newer OpenManage
version cannot be used instead.
• Resolve any rpm dependencies as prompted by the OMSA setup scripts. For example, yum
install libwsman1 openwsman-client.
7. Install Dell Fluid Cache for DAS v1.0. A DFC license will be needed to use the product. Copy the
license file to the server. Execute the DFC setup script and resolve any Linux dependencies as
required.
8. Check that DFC is installed and the service is running.
[root@nfs-dfc ~]# service fluid_cache status
fldc_cfm (5794) is running...
fldc_agent (5887) is running...
fldc is running...
[root@nss-rna ~]#
9. Install the appropriate Dell drivers for the PowerEdge R720. At a minimum, the PCIe SSD driver
must be updated. v2.1.0 is the recommended version.
10. Install Mellanox OFED 1.5.3-3.1.0 for RHEL 6.3 on the server.
• First build Mellanox OFED for errata kernel 2.6.32-279.14.1 using the iso downloaded from
Mellanox’s website. This step will generate a new iso in /tmp.
<MLNX_OFED_iso_mount_point>/mlnx_add_kernel_support.sh -i
MLNX_OFED_LINUX-1.5.3-3.1.0-rhel6.3-x86_64.iso
• Install Mellanox OFED from the new iso generated in /tmp.
<new_iso_mount_point>/mlnxofedinstall
• Resolve any rpm dependencies for OFED. For example, yum install tcl tk.
Reboot the server for these changes to take effect.
A.3. NFS server configuration and tuning
Tune the PowerEdge R720 server as described below.
1. Change the number of nfsd threads to 256. Make a backup of /etc/sysconfig/nfs and change the
number of threads. Set the NFS service to start on boot.
# cp /etc/sysconfig/nfs{,.orig}
# sed -i 's/#RPCNFSDCOUNT=8/RPCNFSDCOUNT=256/' /etc/sysconfig/nfs
# chkconfig nfs on