File Storage NAS:Mount an NFS file system on a Linux ECS instance

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure that you have:

• An Alibaba Cloud account with NAS activated. When you first visit the NAS product page, follow the on-screen instructions to activate the serviceNAS product page

• An ECS instance running CentOS 7.9 in the Singapore region. See Create an ECS instance

Step 1: Create an NFS file system

1. Log on to the NAS console.

2. On the Overview page, find the File System Selection Guide section and click Create below General-purpose NAS.

3. On the General-purpose NAS (Pay-as-you-go) page, configure the parameters listed below. Leave all other parameters at their default values. For a full parameter reference, see Create a file system.General-purpose NAS (Pay-as-you-go) page

   Parameter	Value
   Region	Singapore
   Zone	The zone where your ECS instance resides
   Storage Class	Capacity
   Protocol Type	NFS
   Network Type	VPC
   VPC	The VPC where your ECS instance resides
   vSwitch	A vSwitch in the same VPC

4. Click Buy Now and complete the purchase.

By default, each Alibaba Cloud account includes a "VPC default permission group (all allowed)" that grants all IP addresses in the VPC access to the file system through its mount target. To restrict access, see Manage permission groups.

A mount target is automatically created for General-purpose NAS file systems with the "VPC default permission group (all allowed)" attached. For Extreme NAS file systems, create the mount target manually. See Create a mount target.

Step 2: Mount the file system

1. In the left navigation pane, choose File System > File System List.

2. In the top navigation bar, select the resource group and region where your file system resides.

   

3. Locate the file system you created and click Mount in the Actions column.

   The first time you use the one-click mount feature, NAS prompts you to authorize access to your ECS resources by granting the AliyunServiceRoleForNasEcsHandler service-linked role. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the authorization. See Service-linked roles of NAS.

4. In the Mount panel, complete the mount settings:

   1. Select a mount target, then click Next.

   2. Select the ECS instance to mount the file system on, then click Next. The ECS instance must be in the same VPC as the file system. If they are in different VPCs, the connection may fail. > Note: If your ECS instance does not appear in the list, refresh the page and try again. Only one ECS instance can be selected at a time. To mount the file system on multiple ECS instances, see Mount an NFS file system on multiple ECS instances at a time.

   3. Configure the mount settings:

      Parameter	Description
      Mount Path	The local directory on your ECS instance where the file system will be mounted
      Automatic Mount	Automatic Mount at Startup is selected by default, so the file system remounts automatically when the ECS instance restarts
      Protocol Type	General-purpose NAS supports NFSv3 and NFSv4. NFSv3 is recommended for better performance, unless you need multiple ECS instances to edit the same file simultaneously. Extreme NAS supports NFSv3 only.
      NAS Directory	The directory of the NAS file system to mount. Enter / for the root directory, or a subdirectory such as /abc. If the directory does not exist, select Confirm New Directory to create it. Optionally, set the UID, GID, and POSIX permissions for the new directory.
      Mount Parameters	Use the default mount parameters. For the full parameter list, see Mount an NFS file system on a Linux ECS instance.

5. Click Complete. The mount operation takes 1–2 minutes. When the status changes to mount successful, the NAS file system is ready to use on the ECS instance. If the mount fails, use the built-in troubleshooting tool. See Fix mount issues.

   

Verify the mount

After the mount completes, connect to your ECS instance and run the following command to confirm the file system is mounted:

mount -l

To check the file system capacity, run:

df -h

Step 3: Use the file system

The mounted file system works like a local directory on your ECS instance. Run the following commands to create directories and files:

mkdir /mnt/dir1
mkdir /mnt/dir2
touch /mnt/file1
echo 'some file content' > /mnt/file2
ls /mnt

If the output lists dir1, dir2, file1, and file2, the General-purpose Capacity NFS file system is working correctly.

What's next

• To mount a NAS file system using mount commands instead of the console, see Mount a file system on an ECS instance.

• To mount a NAS file system on a container, see Mount a file system on a container.