Shared filesystem for a cluster

Clusters have a shared filesystem implementation tuned for cluster workloads. It uses virtiofs.

Cluster filesystems behave like a normal POSIX filesystem. They are optimized for high-throughput shared access across nodes.

Shared Filesystem Compatibility Table

Cluster shared filesystems can only be mounted in clusters today. We are working on making virtiofs available for instances too.

Compute Type / SFS type	Mounting to Instances	Mounting to Clusters
Shared filesystem for instances (NFS)	✓ Supported	✓ Supported Can be mounted at any time
Cluster shared filesystem (virtiofs)	✕ Not supported	✓ Supported Can only be mounted during cluster creation

Creating an instant cluster

When you create an instant cluster, we automatically create a /home shared filesystem. It is available on the jumphost and all worker nodes.

You can also select existing shared filesystems during cluster creation. See Deploying an Instant Cluster.

You can only mount shared filesystems from the same region as the cluster you are trying to create.

Attaching existing cluster shared filesystem

Currently, you cannot attach a cluster shared filesystem (virtiofs) after cluster creation. Attach any existing cluster shared filesystems during deployment.

Mounting and unmounting cluster shared filesystem

Replace <SFS_NAME> with the generated name of SFS when you created it.

1. Create a directory to which you want to mount the SFS:

mkdir -p /mnt/<SFS_NAME>

2. Mount the shared filesystem:

sudo mount -t virtiofs <SFS_NAME> /mnt/<SFS_NAME> 

Using cluster shared filesystem in instances

You cannot attach and mount cluster shared filesystem to the instances. An alternative way is to create an NFS-based shared filesystem, attach it to the cluster, and then copy all files from the cluster shared filesystem to it. See Creating a shared filesystem for more information.