# Installation Tutorial

- Service Overview
- Install and configure controller node
  - Install and configure controller node on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS
  - Install and configure controller node on Ubuntu
  - Install and configure controller node on Debian
- Install and configure a share node
  - Install and configure a share node running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS
  - Install and configure a share node running Ubuntu
  - Install and configure a share node running Debian
- Verify operation
- Creating and using shared file systems
  - Creating shares with Shared File Systems Option 1 (DHSS = False)
  - Create a share type
  - Create a share
  - Allow access to the share
  - Mount the share on a compute instance
  - Creating shares with Shared File Systems Option 2 (DHSS = True)
  - Create a share
  - Allow access to the share
  - Mount the share on a compute instance
- Next steps

The OpenStack Shared File Systems service (manila) provides coordinated access to shared or distributed file systems. The method in which the share is provisioned and consumed is determined by the Shared File Systems driver, or drivers in the case of a multi-backend configuration. There are a variety of drivers that support NFS, CIFS, HDFS, GlusterFS, CEPHFS, MAPRFS and other protocols as well.

The Shared File Systems API and scheduler services typically run on the controller nodes. Depending upon the drivers used, the share service can run on controllers, compute nodes, or storage nodes.

Important

For simplicity, this guide describes configuring the Shared File Systems service to use one of either:

- the `generic` back end with the `driver_handles_share_servers` mode (DHSS) enabled that uses the Compute service (nova), Image service (glance), Networking service (neutron) and Block storage service (cinder); or,

- the `LVM` back end with `driver_handles_share_servers` mode (DHSS) disabled.

The storage protocol used and referenced in this guide is `NFS`. As stated above, the Shared File System service supports different storage protocols depending on the back end chosen.

For the `generic` back end, networking service configuration requires the capability of networks being attached to a public router in order to create share networks. If using this back end, ensure that Compute, Networking and Block storage services are properly working before you proceed. For networking service, ensure that option 2 (deploying the networking service with support for self-service networks) is properly configured.

This installation tutorial also assumes that installation and configuration of OpenStack packages, Network Time Protocol, database engine and message queue has been completed as per the instructions in the OpenStack Installation Guide.. The Identity Service (keystone) has to be pre-configured with suggested client environment scripts.

For more information on various Shared File Systems storage back ends, see the Shared File Systems Configuration Reference..

To learn more about installation dependencies noted above, see the OpenStack Installation Guide.

this page last updated: 2026-04-22 07:00:00

Except where otherwise noted, this document is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See all OpenStack Legal Documents.

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