Dan Melomedman wrote:
> Just a matter of time. Just a matter of time ...
>
> Mantra: NFS stands for Network Failure System.
>
> Take a look at systems like GFS, better idea.
Since GFS is linux-only, I would assume that your servers run linux.
Then, yes, your opinion of NFS might be correct. NFS server support has long
been a weak point in the linux kernel. The NFS server code in stock pre
2.2.18 kernels only supports linux NFS clients. By default, many linux nfs
implementations are setup to trade stability for speed. (It's even standard
practice to mount ext2 filesystems async with linux.) If you're going to use
NFS in a production environment, and you really care about stability, there
are many better implementations of NFS. Solaris and FreeBSD come to mind.
We use a NetApp Filer as our NFS server, and it's been rock solid for almost
two years.
If you get a solid NFS server that's written to spec (i.e. no async by
default) and it crashes, qmail will defer messages during your NFS outage.
Just get the NFS server up and running, again, and everything should be ok.
Make sure that messages are stored using the maildir format, which is NFS
safe. Don't be scared of using NFS.
Good luck,
--
Clint Bullock
Network Administrator
University of Georgia
Office of the Vice President for Research
