IGI & NFS Mounts

The IBM knowledge base reads like it was constructed by a technical writer who has very little experience of actually using the products they are describing. At least, that is how I read most of the official documentation.

Frequently, documentation might tell you how to do something, but it won't necessarily tell you why you should do it; what circumstances would require you to do it; and even the steps described are often missing some key piece of information.

The documentation that supports how to create an NFS Mount Point for Enterprise Connector input files is a case in point:

• the documentation describes what you need to do, ish
• the documentation is lacking why you need to do it
• the documentation only provides one side of the NFS equation

Why would you move your files to an NFS Mount Point?

If you have an IGI cluster (and if you are running a Production Service, you really ought to have a cluster), then you MUST use NFS for your input files! You need all of your cluster members to be accessing the same source repository for your files and the ONLY way to do that is via NFS.

What do you need to do at the NFS Server side?

Well, let's take a Red Hat based system as an example for hosting our input files. You would perform the following tasks:

yum -y install nfs-utils

useradd -u 50001 identity

mkdir /nfsroot

mkdir /nfsroot/connectors

chown -R identity:identity /nfsroot/connectors

echo "/nfsroot 10.10.10.0/24(rw,no_subtree_check)" > /etc/exports

systemctl start nfs

systemctl enable nfs

NOTE: Change 10.10.10.0 to your subnet as appropriate.

NOTE: Update your firewall rules to allow traffic on ports 111 (TCP/UDP) and 2049 (TCP).

What do you need to do at the IGI Appliance side?

Navigate to Manage > Network Settings > Network File System, then click on the New icon.

Complete the following:

• Host Name: Linux Server Name or IP Address which hosts your NFS service
• Remote Directory: /nfsroot
• Local Directory: linuxserver

NOTE: Change linuxserver to whatever label you desire.

What do you need to do at the IGI Application side?

Navigate to Enterprise Connectors and create your CSV based connector as normal but within the Input Folder attribute, use the following syntax:

/nfsmount/linuxserver/application

NOTE: Change linuxserver to whatever you set within the Appliance.
NOTE: Ensure that the application folder exists on the Linux Server for the relevant application you are creating a connector for. (Ideally, this would mirror your application name, right?)

And that, my friends, is that!

IAM Respite - Champagne Time

I say Champagne Time. I don't really mean that. I mean there's a bottle of Champagne up for grabs as part of my Guinness Six Nations 2019 predictor game.

It's a simple game. 15 matches. 15 score predictions. The most accurate person walks off with Champagne (or a substitute drink of their choice).

It's free to enter; takes only marginal skill; and enhances the joy of the tournament.

Don't be shy - give it a go and forget all about that Identity & Access Management stuff for a few minutes.