Lustre Getting Started
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Getting Started with Lustre
If you are new to Lustre, this page is your starting point. The resources below are organized as a learning path — read them in order if you are setting up Lustre for the first time.
Step 1: Understand What Lustre Is
Start with the architecture — understanding how the pieces fit together will save you significant trouble later.
- Lustre Architecture for Admins — A practical overview of Lustre's components (MGS, MDS, OSS, clients, LNet) and how they work together. Read this first.
- Introduction to Lustre — A more detailed architectural reference, including scalability numbers and feature descriptions.
Step 2: Plan Your Deployment
Before touching hardware, you need to answer: how many servers, how much storage per target, and what network fabric?
- Lustre Hardware Sizing Guide — Worked examples for sizing MDTs, OSTs, memory, and network. Includes decision trees for RAID and backend filesystem selection.
- Lustre Deployment Patterns — Common reference architectures from small (3 nodes) to large (hundreds of servers). Helps you understand what to co-locate and what to separate.
Step 3: Install and Configure
Once you have a plan:
- Lustre Quick Start Guide — End-to-end tutorial: format, mount, and verify a working Lustre filesystem on three nodes. Real commands, real output.
- Compiling Lustre — Building Lustre from source for your distribution (RHEL, Rocky, Ubuntu, SLES).
- Installing the Lustre Software — Installing from pre-built RPMs.
Step 4: Learn Day-to-Day Operations
Once you have a running filesystem:
- Starting and Stopping Lustre Services — Startup and shutdown sequences, mount order, and common mount issues.
- Lustre Common Mistakes — Collected pitfalls from the community. Read this before your filesystem goes into production.
- Lustre Striping Best Practices — How to configure file striping for your workload.
Step 5: Go Deeper
After you are comfortable with basic operations, explore these topics based on your needs:
- Monitoring: Lustre Health Checks | Lustre Monitoring and Statistics Guide
- Tuning: Lustre Tuning | ZFS Tunables for Lustre Metadata Servers (MDS)
- High Availability: Creating a Framework for High Availability with Pacemaker
- Security: UID GID Mapping | Shared Secret Key Authentication And Encryption
- Quotas: Lustre Quota Administration | Lustre Quota Troubleshooting
- Advanced Layouts: Progressive File Layouts | Data on MDT
- Troubleshooting: Lustre Debugging Procedures | Frequently Asked Questions
Reference Materials
- Lustre Operations Manual — The authoritative reference for all Lustre configuration and administration.
- Lustre Release Information — Current and past releases, download links, and support status.
- Mailing Lists and IRC — Community mailing lists and Slack channel.
- Reporting Bugs — How to file bugs in the Lustre JIRA tracker.