This page shows you how to mount a Filestore file share on a Compute Engine virtual machine (VM) instance that's in the same Google Cloud project and VPC network. To learn how to mount file shares on clients in a remote network, see Mounting file shares on remote clients. If you're looking to access Filestore instances from Google Kubernetes Engine clusters instead, see Access Filestore instances with the Filestore CSI driver.
Before you begin
Ensure that the network firewall is properly configured for use with Filestore. See Configuring firewall rules for details.
Mounting a file share on a Compute Engine VM instance
Use one of the following procedures to mount a Filestore file share
on a Compute Engine VM. We recommend mounting to a n1-standard-8
VM or
greater for optimal performance.
Linux: mount
To manually mount a file share to a Linux client VM:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM Instances page.
Locate the Linux VM you want to use as a client, then click SSH to open a terminal on that VM.
Optional: Mounting a file share on a client VM with multiple network interfaces through a secondary network.
Details (Click to expand)
If you want to mount the file share through a secondary network, namely an interface other than
nic0
, you must modify the client VM's routing policy. Run:sudo ip route \ add filestore-reserved-address-range \ via default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
where:
filestore-reserved-address-range
is the reserved address range for use by the Filestore instance.default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
is the default gateway IP address of the NIC connected to the VPC network that is shared with the Filestore instance.
For more information about using Compute Engine instances with multiple NICs, see Configure routing for an additional network interface.
Install NFS:
Debian/Ubuntu
Use the following commands to install NFS on Debian or Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get -y update &&
sudo apt-get install nfs-commonRHEL/CentOS
Use the following commands to install NFS on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS.
sudo yum update &&
sudo yum install nfs-utilsSUSE
Use the following commands to install NFS on SUSE.
sudo zypper update &&
sudo zypper -n install nfs-clientMake a local directory to map to the Filestore file share:
sudo mkdir -p mount-point-directory
where
mount-point-directory
is the directory to create, for example/mnt/filedir
.Mount the file share from the Filestore instance by running the
mount
command. You can use any NFS mount options. For the best performance, we recommend using the following NFSmount
options:Option Description hard
The NFS client retries NFS requests indefinitely. To reduce the possibility of I/O disruptions when the Filestore instance reboots, we recommend using the hard
mount option for both Linux and Windows clients.timeo=600
The NFS client waits 600 deciseconds (60 seconds) before retrying an NFS request. retrans=3
The NFS client attempts NFS requests three times before taking further recovery action. rsize=262144
The NFS client can receive a maximum of 262,144 bytes from the NFS server per READ
request.
Note: For basic-tier instances, set thersize
value to1048576
.wsize=1048576
The NFS client can receive a maximum of 1,048,576 bytes from the NFS server per WRITE
request.resvport
The NFS client uses a privileged source port when communicating with the NFS server for this mount point. async
The NFS client delays sending application writes to the NFS server until certain conditions are met.
Caution: Using thesync
option significantly reduces performance.- For reduced mounting latency, specify the
-o tcp
option. - If you are mounting an enterprise or zonal (previously high scale SSD)
instance to a client VM that's running Linux kernel version 5.3+,
consider specifying the
nconnect
mount option for increased NFS performance. We recommend specifying up to7
connections for zonal tier and up to2
connections for the regional and enterprise tiers. In general, the larger the file share capacity and the fewer the connecting client VMs, the more performance you gain by specifying additional connections withnconnect
.
Run the
mount
command with your preferred options, similar to the following:sudo mount -o rw ip-address:/file-share mount-point-directory
where:
ip-address
is the IP address for the Filestore instance.file-share
is the name of the file share on the instance.mount-point-directory
is the path where you want to map the Filestore file share to.
You can get the IP address and file share name of an instance from any of following sources:
The Filestore instances page.
The
IP_ADDRESS
field in the results from thefilestore instances list
command.The
ipAddresses
section in the results from thefilestore instances describe
command.
For example, given a Filestore instance with an IP address
10.0.1.2
and a file share namedshare1
, the following command mounts the file share to the local mount point directory/mnt/render
:sudo mount 10.0.1.2:/share1 /mnt/render
- For reduced mounting latency, specify the
Optional: Run
chmod
to set permissions on the mount directory so that someone other than root users can write to it. To set directory permissions, run the following command:sudo chmod permissions mount-point-directory
where:
permissions
is the set of permissions to grant. For example,chmod go+rw
makes the directory readable and writable by members in the group that owns the directory and all other users. For more information about setting permissions, see Configuring access on a file share.mount-point-directory
is the path to the directory where the Filestore file share is mounted.
Optional: Confirm that the Filestore file share is mounted:
df -h --type=nfs
The output should contain an entry similar to the following:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on 10.0.1.2:/share1 1018G 76M 966G 1% /mnt/render 10.0.2.2:/vol3 1018G 76M 966G 1% /mnt/filestore3
If you need to use NFS file locking, you might need to set the ports used by the
statd
andnlockmgr
daemons and configure firewall rules to open up those ports.
Linux: /etc/fstab
You can make file shares automatically mount to client VMs during boot up by
modifying the client's /etc/fstab
file:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM Instances page.
Locate the Linux VM you want to use as a client, then click SSH to open a terminal on that VM.
Optional: Mounting a file share on a client VM that has multiple network interfaces through a secondary network.
Details (Click to expand)
If you want to mount the file share through a secondary network, namely an interface other than
nic0
, you must modify the client VM's routing policy:- In
/etc/default/instance_configs.cfg
, set thesetup
flag forNetworkInterfaces
tofalse
:[NetworkInterfaces] dhclient_script = /sbin/google-dhclient-script dhcp_command = ip_forwarding = true setup = false
In
/etc/network/interfaces
, add the following lines:auto eth1 iface eth1 inet dhcp up ip route add filestore-reserved-address-range via default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
where:
filestore-reserved-address-range
is the reserved address range for use by the Filestore instance.default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
is the default gateway IP address of the NIC connected to the VPC network that is shared with the Filestore instance.
For more information about using Compute Engine instances with multiple NICs, see Configure routing for an additional network interface.
- In
Install NFS:
Debian/Ubuntu
Use the following commands to install NFS on Debian or Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get -y update &&
sudo apt-get install nfs-commonRHEL/CentOS
Use the following commands to install NFS on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS.
sudo yum update &&
sudo yum install nfs-utilsSUSE
Use the following commands to install NFS on SUSE.
sudo zypper update &&
sudo zypper -n install nfs-clientMake a local directory to map to the Filestore file share:
sudo mkdir -p mount-point-directory
where
mount-point-directory
is the directory to create, for example/mnt/filedir
.Open the
/etc/fstab
file:sudo vim /etc/fstab
Add the following line in the
/etc/fstab
file:ip-address:/file-share mount-point-directory nfs options,_netdev 0 0
where:
ip-address
is the IP address for the Filestore instance.file-share
is the name of the file share on the instance.mount-point-directory
is the path you want to map the Filestore file share to.options
are the NFS mount options. We recommend keeping the default NFS mount options, with the following exceptions:- For automounting, we recommend specifying
-o tcp
to reduce the latency when mounting and unmounting. - If you are mounting a zonal (previously high scale SSD) instance to
a client VM that's running Linux kernel version 5.3+, consider
specifying the
nconnect
mount option for increased NFS performance. We recommend specifying up to7
connections for zonal tier and up to2
connections for the regional and enterprise tier. In general, the larger the file share capacity and the fewer the connecting client VMs, the more performance you gain by specifying additional connections withnconnect
.
- For automounting, we recommend specifying
Example: The following line in
/etc/fstab
mounts file sharevol1
of the Filestore instance with IP address10.0.0.2
in the mount point directory/mnt
with the default mount options:10.0.0.2:/vol1 /mnt nfs defaults,_netdev 0 0
Mount everything in
/etc/fstab
:sudo mount -a
The file share is now automatically mounted each time the client VM boots up.
Linux: autofs
You can configure autofs
to automatically mount a file share only when it's
accessed and keep it unmounted when it's not used. Compared to having a file
share statically mounted in /etc/fstab
, this method helps conserve client VM
resources in situations where the client needs to map to many mount
points.
Install NFS
and autofs
on the client VM
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM Instances page.
Locate the Linux VM you want to use as a client, then click SSH to open a terminal on that VM.
Optional: Mounting a file share on a client VM with multiple network interfaces through a secondary network.
Details (Click to expand)
If you want to mount the file share through a secondary network, namely an interface other than
nic0
, you must modify the client VM's routing policy:- In
/etc/default/instance_configs.cfg
, set thesetup
flag forNetworkInterfaces
tofalse
:[NetworkInterfaces] dhclient_script = /sbin/google-dhclient-script dhcp_command = ip_forwarding = true setup = false
In
/etc/network/interfaces
, add the following lines:auto eth1 iface eth1 inet dhcp up ip route add filestore-reserved-address-range via default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
where:
filestore-reserved-address-range
is the reserved address range for use by the Filestore instance.default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
is the default gateway IP address of the NIC connected to the VPC network that is shared with the Filestore instance.
For more information about using Compute Engine instances with multiple NICs, see Configure routing for an additional network interface.
- In
Install NFS by running the following commands:
Debian/Ubuntu
Use the following commands to install NFS on Debian or Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get -y update &&
sudo apt-get install nfs-commonRHEL/CentOS
Use the following commands to install NFS on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS.
sudo yum update &&
sudo yum install nfs-utilsSUSE
Use the following commands to install NFS on SUSE.
sudo zypper update &&
sudo zypper -n install nfs-clientFrom the terminal window of the client VM, install
autofs
:Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install autofs
RHEL/CentOS
sudo yum install autofs
SUSE
sudo zypper -n install autofs
Configure autofs
to dynamically mount the file share to the client VM
Enable
autofs
:sudo systemctl enable --now autofs
Make a local directory to map to the Filestore file share:
sudo mkdir -p mount-point-directory
where
mount-point-directory
is the directory to create. It must not contain any subdirectories. In this guide, we use/nfs
as the mount point directory.Open the
/etc/auto.master
file:sudo vim /etc/auto.master
Add the following line in the
/etc/auto.master
file:/nfs /etc/auto.nfs --timeout seconds
where
seconds
is the duration in seconds before the mount timeout. The default value is300
. Setting this value to0
disables unmounting byautofs
.Create a file called
/etc/auto.nfs
:sudo vim /etc/auto.nfs
Add the following line in the
/etc/auto.nfs
file:mount-point-subdir options ip-address:/file-share
where:
mount-point-subdir
is the subdirectory in/nfs
you want to map the Filestore file share to. This subdirectory is dynamically generated and shouldn't exist in the client VM.options
are the NFS mount options. We recommend keeping the default NFS mount options, with the following exceptions:- For automounting, we recommend specifying
-o tcp
to reduce the latency when mounting and unmounting. - If you are mounting a zonal (previously high scale SSD) instance to
a client VM that's running Linux kernel version 5.3+, consider
specifying the
nconnect
mount option for increased NFS performance. We recommend specifying up to7
connections for zonal tier and up to2
connections for the regional and enterprise tiers. In general, the larger the file share capacity and the fewer the connecting client VMs, the more performance you gain by specifying additional connections withnconnect
. ip-address
is the IP address for the Filestore instance.file-share
is the name of the file share on the instance.
- For automounting, we recommend specifying
Example: The following line in
/etc/auto.nfs
mounts file sharevol1
of the Filestore instance with IP address10.0.0.2
in the dynamically generated subdirectoryfile-shares
withread/write
access granted:file-shares -rw 10.0.0.2:/vol1
Test your configuration
If the file share is mounted, you need to unmount it:
sudo umount mount-point-directory
where
mount-point-directory
is the path where the Filestore file share is mapped to.If there is an
/etc/fstab
entry that mounts the file share at system boot, make sure to remove it.Reload
autofs
:sudo service autofs reload
Confirm that your configuration works:
ls mount-point-directory/mount-point-subdir
where:
mount-point-directory
is the mount point directory indicated in the/etc/auto.master
file.mount-point-subdir
is the mount point subdirectory indicated in the/etc/auto.nfs
file.
From our example, the command would be:
ls /nfs/file-shares
If the automount is configured correctly, the system first mounts the file share and then returns the results of the
ls
command. The file share is automatically unmounted after a period of inactivity, which is defined in thetimeout
value specified in the/etc/auto.master
file.
Windows
Connect to the Windows VM
In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM Instances page.
Locate the Windows VM that you want to use as a client, then click RDP to open a remote desktop connection to that VM. For more information, see Connecting to Windows instances.
Install NFS on the Windows VM
- On the Windows VM, open PowerShell as an administrator.
In PowerShell, install the NFS client:
Install-WindowsFeature -Name NFS-Client
Restart the Windows VM instance as prompted, then open a new remote desktop connection.
Configure the user ID used by the NFS client
In
PowerShell
, run the following commands to create two new registry entries,AnonymousUid
andAnonymousGid
:New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ClientForNFS\CurrentVersion\Default" ` -Name "AnonymousUid" -Value "0" -PropertyType DWORD
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ClientForNFS\CurrentVersion\Default" ` -Name "AnonymousGid" -Value "0" -PropertyType DWORD
Restart the NFS client service:
nfsadmin client stop
nfsadmin client start
Map the file share to the Windows VM
Exit
PowerShell
:exit
Optional: Mounting a file share on a client VM with multiple network interfaces through a secondary network.
Details (Click to expand)
If you want to mount the file share through a secondary network, namely an interface other than
nic0
, you must modify the client VM's routing policy. Run:route -p ^ add filestore-reserved-address-range ^ mask address-range-subnet-mask ^ default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
where:
filestore-reserved-address-range
is the reserved address range for use by the Filestore instance.address-range-subnet-mask
is the subnet mask offilestore-reserved-address-range
. For example, a /29 reserved address range would use the 255.255.255.248 subnet mask.default-gateway-of-nic-to-filestore
is the default gateway IP address of the NIC connected to the VPC network that is shared with the Filestore instance.
Example:
route -p add 10.65.21.176 mask 255.255.255.248 10.128.0.1
For more information about using Compute Engine instances with multiple NICs, see Configure routing for an additional network interface.
From
Command Prompt
, map the file share to a drive letter:net use drive-letter: \\filestore-ip\file-share-name
where:
- filestore-ip is the IP address of the Filestore instance.
- file-share-name is the name of the file share on the Filestore instance.
- drive-letter is the letter of the drive you want to assign for the mapping.
Example
The following command maps file share
vol1
on the Filestore instance with the IP address10.0.0.2
to drivez:
on the client Windows VM:net use Z: \\10.0.0.2\vol1
Optional: To use NFS file locking, verify the following:
Ensure that the firewall rules are configured for all required NFS ports, including
statd
andnlockmgr
.Ensure that the Windows NFS client is configured with reserved ports using a command similar to the following in PowerShell:
nfsadmin client config protocol=tcp UseReservedPorts=yes nfsadmin client stop nfsadmin client start
Creating and mounting subdirectories on the file share
Once your file share is mounted on a client VM, you can create subdirectories on the file share, which clients can then mount directly instead of mounting the entire file share:
To create a subdirectory on the mounted file share, run:
sudo mkdir -p mount-point-directory/file-share-sub-dir
where:
mount-point-directory
is the path where you map the file share to.file-share-sub-dir
is the path of the subdirectory in the file share that you want to create.
This command creates the subdirectory on both the client VM and the file share. For example, if you mounted file share
10.0.0.2:/vol1
to the directory/mnt
on the client VM, the commandsudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs
creates10.0.0.2:/vol1/nfs
on the file share and/mnt/nfs
on the client VM.Optional: If you want to mount the file share subdirectory to the directory on the client VM where the file share is mounted, you must unmount the file share first:
sudo umount mount-point-directory
where
mount-point-directory
is the directory that the file share is mapped to.Mount the subdirectory:
sudo mount ip-address:/file-share/file-share-sub-dir mount-point-directory
where:
ip-address
is the IP address for the Filestore instance.file-share
is the name of the file share on the instance.file-share-sub-dir
is the path of the subdirectory in the file share to mount.mount-point-directory
is the path where you want to map the Filestore file share to.
Example: In the following command:
sudo mount 10.0.0.2:/vol1/nfs /mnt/nfs
10.0.0.2
is the IP address of the Filestore instance.vol1
is the name of the file share.nfs
is a file share subdirectory./mnt/nfs
is the directory on the client VM where the file share subdirectorynfs
is mapped to.
What's next
- Learn how to copy data to the mounted file share.
- Learn how to mount file shares on clients in a remote network.
- Troubleshoot mounting issues related to Filestore.