GlusterFS, developed by RedHat, is a free and open-source distributed file system that provides scalability and high availability for managing large amounts of data. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing GlusterFS on Debian 11 servers, setting up a replicated volume, and testing the replication and high availability.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following requirements:

• Two or three Debian 11 servers.
• A non-root user with sudo/administrator root privileges.

This tutorial will use three Debian 11 servers with the following details:

Hostname	IP Address
node1	192.168.5.50
node2	192.168.5.56
node3	192.168.5.57

Setup Hostname and FQDN

The first step is to set up the hostname and fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for each Debian server that will be used by GlusterFS. You can set up the hostname using the hostnamectl command and the FQDN via the /etc/hosts file.

To set up the hostname, run the following command on each server:

# run on node1
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname node1.home.lan

# run on node2
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname node2.home.lan

# run on node3
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname node3.home.lan

Next, open the /etc/hosts file on each server using your preferred text editor. In this tutorial, we will use the nano editor:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add the following lines to the file, replacing the IP addresses and hostnames with the correct values:

192.168.5.50 node1.home.lan node1
192.168.5.56 node2.home.lan node2
192.168.5.57 node3.home.lan node3

Save the file and exit the editor. Finally, verify the FQDN on each server by running the following command:

hostname -f

You should see the correct FQDN for each server.

Setting up Disk Partition

It is recommended to use a separate disk for the GlusterFS deployment. In this example, each Debian server has an additional disk /dev/vdb that will be used for GlusterFS. We will show you how to set up a new disk on a Linux system using the fdisk command.

To start, verify the list of available disks on your Debian server by running the following command:

sudo fdisk -l

You should see a list of disks, including the /dev/vdb disk.

Next, run the fdisk command to configure the /dev/vdb disk:

sudo fdisk /dev/vdb

Follow these steps to create a new partition:

1. Enter the n command to create a new partition.
2. Choose the partition type. For a primary partition, enter p.
3. Specify the number of partitions. In this example, we will create one partition, so enter 1.
4. Accept the default values for the first and last sectors.
5. Set the size of the partition. For a 5GB partition, enter +5GB.
6. Finally, enter w to save the changes.

Verify that the new partition /dev/vdb1 has been created by running the following command:

sudo fdisk -l

You should see the new partition listed.

Now, format the new partition with the ext4 filesystem format using the following command:

sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/vdb1

Once the formatting is complete, the new partition is ready for use.

Setup Auto-Mount Partition

In this step, we will set up auto-mount for the new partition /dev/vdb1 using the /etc/fstab file. We will also create a new directory that will be used to store data in GlusterFS.

First, create a target directory for each server by running the following commands:

# run on node1
sudo mkdir -p /data/node1

# run on node2
sudo mkdir -p /data/node2

# run on node3
sudo mkdir -p /data/node3

Next, open the /etc/fstab file using the nano editor:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following lines to the file to automatically mount the new partition:

#for node1
/dev/vdb1 /data/node1 ext4 defaults 0 1

#for node2
/dev/vdb1 /data/node2 ext4 defaults 0 1

#for node3
/dev/vdb1 /data/node3 ext4 defaults 0 1

Save the file and exit the editor.

To mount the new partition, run the following command:

sudo mount -a

Finally, create a new directory brick0 on the newly mounted partition for each server:

# run on node1
sudo mkdir -p /data/node1/brick0

# run on node2
sudo mkdir -p /data/node2/brick0

# run on node3
sudo mkdir -p /data/node3/brick0

The new partition is now mounted and ready to be used by GlusterFS.

Installing GlusterFS Server

Now that we have set up the disk partition, we can proceed with installing the GlusterFS server package on the Debian servers.

First, install the basic dependencies by running the following command:

sudo apt install gnupg2 apt-transport-https software-properties-common

Next, download the GPG key for the GlusterFS repository and convert it to the file /usr/share/keyrings/glusterfs-archive-keyring.gpg:

curl https://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/10/rsa.pub | gpg --dearmor > /usr/share/keyrings/glusterfs-archive-keyring.gpg

Create new environment variables and add the GlusterFS repository to your system by running the following command:

DEBID=$(grep 'VERSION_ID=' /etc/os-release | cut -d '=' -f 2 | tr -d '"')
DEBVER=$(grep 'VERSION=' /etc/os-release | grep -Eo '[a-z]+')
DEBARCH=$(dpkg --print-architecture)

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/glusterfs-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/LATEST/Debian/${DEBID}/${DEBARCH}/apt ${DEBVER} main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gluster.list

Update and refresh your package index by running the following command:

sudo apt update

Finally, install the GlusterFS server package by running the following command:

sudo apt install glusterfs-server

Start and enable the GlusterFS service by running the following commands:

sudo systemctl start glusterd
sudo systemctl enable glusterd

Verify the status of the GlusterFS service by running the following command:

sudo systemctl status glusterd

If the service is running and enabled, you will see the output active (running).

Initializing Storage Pool

In this step, we will initialize the GlusterFS cluster with three Debian servers: node1, node2, and node3. We will initialize the cluster from node1 and add the other nodes to the cluster.

Before proceeding, make sure that each server is accessible via the hostname or FQDN. You can verify this by running the ping command to each server.

On the node1 terminal, run the following commands to initialize the GlusterFS cluster:

sudo gluster peer probe node2.home.lan
sudo gluster peer probe node3.home.lan

If successful, you will see the output peer probe: success.

On the node2 terminal, run the following command to verify the cluster status:

sudo gluster peer status

You should see the status Connected for node1 and node3.

Repeat the same step on the node3 terminal to verify the cluster status:

sudo gluster peer status

Again, you should see the status Connected for node1 and node2.

You can also verify the list of pools on the GlusterFS cluster by running the following command on any server:

sudo gluster pool list

At this point, you have successfully initialized the GlusterFS cluster with three Debian servers.

Creating Replicated Volume

In GlusterFS, you can create different types of volumes, such as Distributed, Replicated, Distributed Replicated, Dispersed, and Distributed Dispersed volumes. In this step, we will create a Replicated volume with three servers: node1, node2, and node3. This will automatically replicate data across the servers in the storage pool.

Run the following command to create a new Replicated volume named testVolume:

sudo gluster volume create testVolume replica 3 node1.home.lan:/data/node1/brick0 node2.home.lan:/data/node2/brick0 node3.home.lan:/data/node3/brick0

If successful, you will see the output volume create: testVolume: success.

Start the testVolume by running the following command:

sudo gluster volume start testVolume

You should see the output volume start: testVolume: success.

To get detailed information about the testVolume, run the following command:

sudo gluster volume info

You will see information such as the volume type, default transfer protocol, and the servers involved in the replication.

Congratulations! You have now created a Replicated volume on top of the GlusterFS cluster.

Mount GlusterFS Volume on Client

In this step, we will show you how to mount the GlusterFS volume on a client machine. For this example, we will use an Ubuntu/Debian-based machine with the hostname client.

Before proceeding, make sure that the client machine can access the GlusterFS cluster. Open the /etc/hosts file on the client machine using the nano editor:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add the following lines to the file, replacing the IP addresses and hostnames with the correct values:

192.168.5.50 node1.home.lan node1
192.168.5.56 node2.home.lan node2
192.168.5.57 node3.home.lan node3

Save the file and exit the editor.

Install the glusterfs-client package on the client machine by running the following command:

sudo apt install glusterfs-client

Create a target directory for mounting the GlusterFS volume by running the following command:

sudo mkdir /data

Mount the GlusterFS volume testVolume to the /data directory by running the following command:

sudo mount.glusterfs node1.home.lan:/testVolume /data

Verify that the volume is successfully mounted by running the following command:

sudo df -h

You should see the GlusterFS volume testVolume mounted to the /data directory.

To set up auto-mount for the GlusterFS volume, open the /etc/fstab file using the nano editor:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line to the file:

node1.home.lan:/testVolume /data glusterfs defaults,_netdev 0 0

Save the file and exit the editor.

Congratulations! You have successfully mounted the GlusterFS volume on the client machine and set up auto-mount.

Test Replication and High-Availability

Now, let’s test the replication and high availability of the GlusterFS cluster.

On the client machine, navigate to the /data directory and create some files:

cd /data
touch file{1..15}.md

To verify the replication, go to the node1 terminal and navigate to the /data/node1/brick0 directory. Run the ls command to check the list of files and directories:

cd /data/node1/brick0
ls

You should see the files file1.md to file15.md in the directory.

Repeat the same steps on the node2 and node3 terminals to check the files in their respective directories.

To test the high availability, you can turn off or shut down the node1 server. On the node1 terminal, run the following command to shut down the server:

sudo poweroff

On the node2 terminal, run the following command to check the status of the GlusterFS cluster:

sudo gluster peer status

You should see that node1 is now disconnected.

On the client machine, navigate to the /data directory and run the ls command:

cd /data
ls

You should still see the files file1.md to file15.md.

Congratulations! The replication and high availability of the GlusterFS cluster are working as expected.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have covered the installation and configuration of GlusterFS on Debian 11 servers. We have set up a replicated volume and tested the replication and high availability of the GlusterFS cluster. You can now leverage your GlusterFS cluster by adding more disks and servers to create a scalable and reliable network file system.

For more information on GlusterFS administration, refer to the official GlusterFS documentation.

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Now, you are ready to take advantage of GlusterFS and empower your business with efficient data management and storage capabilities.