Exporting NIM Resources Globally

When resources are allocated for use during NIM operations, they are NFS-exported to the client machines where the operations will be performed. If operations are performed simultaneously on many different clients, the /etc/exports and /etc/xtab files may become very large on the resource servers. This may cause size limits to be hit in the files, and it may also negatively affect NIM performance as the files are locked and modified for each resource allocation/deallocation.

In environments where administrators are not concerned about who has access to the NIM resources, they may set an option to globally export the resources and thereby eliminate the repeated updates to the /etc/exports and /etc/xtab files. The only resources that may not be globally exported are those that are used exclusively by diskless and dataless clients. The global export of a NIM resource will make it readable by any machine in the network, not just those in the NIM environment. The resource will be globally exported as long as it is allocated to any client. When the resource is deallocated from all clients, it is unexported. Global exporting is only supported for resource servers that have the NIM client fileset installed at level 4.3.0 or higher.

From Web-based System Manager

To enable or disable global export of NIM resources from the NIM application:

1. From the NIM menu, select Advanced Configuration > Export NIM Resources Globally.
2. Use the dialog to complete the task.

From SMIT

Manage global exporting of NIM resources from the SMIT interface by typing the SMIT fast path:

  smit nim_global_export

From the Command Line

Global exporting of NIM resources for use by clients can be managed with the global_export attribute.

To enable global exporting of NIM resources, set the attribute global_export=yes on the NIM master:

  nim -o change -a global_export=yes master

To disable global exporting of NIM resources, remove the global_export attribute from the master by setting it to "no":

  nim -o change -a global_export=no master

The enablement and disablement of global exports should not be changed when there are resources allocated to clients. This could lead to situations where resources are exported with incorrect permissions. All NIM operations should be completed and resources deallocated before any attempts are made to change the global_export value. The nim command to change the global_export value will fail if resources are currently allocated to clients.