Moving the file system to another box

[drmike]

Greets:

My large mu client is considering getting yet another box and moving the file uploads off to that box.  We already have the mysql dbs on a second box.  This would be #3 possibly. (Their cut of adsense is working really well for them.)

I'm thinking of setting up another box, giving it a hidden local IP address that only the main box sees, and doing a subdirectory redirect from box #1 to box #3.

Questions:

- What the h-e-double hockey sticks does one call that?  I've tried searching for a method similar to doing that but I'm drawing a blank.

- The client has requested a method like wp.com does theirs with a sub-subdomain for each blog.  I'm assuming that one could do the 'files' subdomain on the second box and then create subdirectories off of that and tell the webserver that to call them subdomains off of the files subdomain.  Does that sound right? (They're willing to stick with subdirectories and realize that it will be a pain but I would like to give them what they requested.)

- And how does one give write access to the webserver on box #1 to the file system on box #3?

Regards,
-drmike

[ron_r]

In the old days (before linux) we used nfs (network file system). I haven't yet done this in linux, but I'll explain a bit from my unix experience.

My FC6 supports NFS4. The man page on it did not list an alternative. You should be able to get lots of info on nfs in the docs of the OS you are using. The nfs server runs nfsd and the client runs biod (block I/O daemon).

As long as the boxes are in the same logical network, they should be able to share security info across the network. You should be able to grant access to a subdirectory tree to username@hostname.domainname.

[Andrew]

We're using NFS with CentOS and it's working very well for our needs.

Thanks,
Andrew

[drmike]

Not familiar with NFS but I'll go research it.  Thanks