Linux - ServerThis forum is for the discussion of Linux Software used in a server related context.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I have around 400 users and wanna use NFS to manage their home directories. Is there a limit on the number of concurrent connections the NFS server can handle?
As I understand it, the NFS daemon itself supports an unlimited number of concurrent connections; but as each connection takes up a unique port on the system you would be limited by the number of unused TCP/IP ports on the server.
In any event, that number would be considerably higher than 400, so I doubt you would have a problem. The bigger issue with that many users would be the speed of the system and I/O performance to the disk(s).
As I understand it, the NFS daemon itself supports an unlimited number of concurrent connections; but as each connection takes up a unique port on the system you would be limited by the number of unused TCP/IP ports on the server.
In any event, that number would be considerably higher than 400, so I doubt you would have a problem. The bigger issue with that many users would be the speed of the system and I/O performance to the disk(s).
Thank you very much for ur reply. Is there anyway I can estimate the hardware I need so that the 400 users would not have any issues?
You haven't really given enough information for us to give any sort of hardware estimation . Is it 400 users total or 400 users connected at the same time? What sort of work is going on? Office work with a few small documents or graphic work with lots of large files? What will be the approx size of each home directory?
You haven't really given enough information for us to give any sort of hardware estimation . Is it 400 users total or 400 users connected at the same time? What sort of work is going on? Office work with a few small documents or graphic work with lots of large files? What will be the approx size of each home directory?
sorry about that. 400 users is the total number; may or may not be connected at the same time. Documents are mainly small with a max quota of 500MB per user.
The answer is "it depends". Can you estimate the total amount of bandwidth the users will need (better leave a margin of error)? Will your network connection be able to provide that bandwidth (you could always use 10 gigabit Ethernet or link aggregation)? Will the disk subsystem be able to handle the bandwidth (there's a big difference between a single ancient 5400 RPM IDE drive and a PCI-express RAID card running a RAID-10 array of 15K PM SCSI disks)?
If it's just light, office type use, I'd say yes if you up the maximum number of nfsd threads (I think the default is 8 or 12 in RHEL), but there's really not enough information here.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.