Get started with SFS

Create an SFS and mount it on a node, ready for files your nodes share. You need a node already running to mount it on; see Create a node first if you need one.

Create an SFS

In MyAccount, open Scalable File System and click Get Started, or the + button labelled Create SFS if you already have an SFS. Enter a Name, and under Select VPC choose the VPC your node is attached to. Move the SFS Size slider to the size you need, and choose Hourly billing to start. (Optional) To encrypt the SFS’s disk, check Enable Encryption. Encryption stays on for as long as the SFS exists; see SFS encryption. Then click Launch SFS.

The SFS is ready once it reads Available.

Give your node access

Next, choose who can reach the SFS. Pick one of two ways:

• To give every resource in the SFS’s VPC read and write access, open the SFS’s Actions menu, click Grant all access, and click Grant. This is the quickest way to start.
• To choose nodes one at a time, first make sure your node reads Running and is attached to the SFS’s VPC. Then open the SFS’s ACL tab and click Configure ACL. Pick Read/Write so the node can save files (Read Only lets it read them), and click Allow.

Either way, the SFS reads Configuring while access is applied, then Available again. Mount it once it reads Available.

An SFS uses one of these at a time. To switch later, see Grant a VPC access to an SFS and Configure per-node access to an SFS.

Mount it on a node

On the SFS’s Info tab, copy the Endpoint. Then connect to your node and run these commands as root, or put sudo in front of each. SFS uses the Network File System (NFS), and on Ubuntu the first two commands install its client. For other systems, see Mount an SFS.

apt update
apt install nfs-common
mkdir -p /mnt/sfs
mount -t nfs -o soft,timeo=600,retrans=2,retry=2 <endpoint>:/data /mnt/sfs

Replace <endpoint> with the endpoint you copied. /mnt/sfs is the folder the SFS appears in, and you can name it anything you like. Use this command rather than the Mount Command on the Info tab: this one has the option values filled in.

To check it worked, run df -h /mnt/sfs. The first column reads <endpoint>:/data when the SFS is mounted. Everything you save in /mnt/sfs now lives on the SFS, and every node you give access to sees the same files. If the mount reports access denied by server, see Troubleshooting SFS. If it seems to hang, see Troubleshooting SFS.

What to do next

• Mount an SFS: what each mount option does, and the NFS client for other systems.
• Back up an SFS: turn on continuous, file-level protection.