Configure NFS code deploys

Starting in Astronomer Software v0.25, you can use an external Network File System (NFS) Volume to deploy DAGs to an Airflow Deployment on Astronomer.

Unlike deploying DAGs via the Astro CLI, deploying DAGs to an NFS volume, such as Azure File Storage or Google Cloud Filestore, does not require rebuilding a Docker image and restarting your underlying Airflow service. When a DAG is added to an NFS volume, it automatically appears in the Airflow UI without requiring additional action or causing downtime.

Implementation Considerations​

Consider the following before completing this setup:

• NFS deploys don't work if you both use namespace pools and set global.clusterRoles to false in your config.yaml file. The feature requires creating persistent volumes, which are a non-namespaced resource and can only be created by cluster roles.
• You can configure NFS volumes only to deploy DAGs. To push dependencies or other requirements to your Airflow Deployment, you'll need to update your requirements.txt and packages.txt files and deploy using the Astro CLI or CI/CD. For more information on pushing code to your Airflow environment, see Customize images.
• If you configure an NFS volume for an Airflow Deployment, you can't use the Astro CLI or an Astronomer service account to deploy DAGs . These options are available only for Deployments configured with an image-based deploy mechanism.
• You can configure NFS volumes only for Airflow Deployments running Airflow 2.0+.

Enable NFS volume storage​

NFS volume deploys must be explicitly enabled on Astronomer by a System Admin. To enable it, update your config.yaml file with the following values:

houston:
  config:
      deployments:
        configureDagDeployment: true
        nfsMountDagDeployment: true

Once you have saved the file, push the configuration change to your platform as described in Apply a config change. This process needs to be completed only once per Software installation.

Provision an NFS volume​

For AWS and GCP, Astronomer recommends using the primary NFS volume solution provided by the cloud provider:

• AWS: EFS
• GCP: Filestore

For instructions specific to Azure, see Create and mount an Azure file share.

For each NFS volume you provision for DAG deploys, you need to configure:

• A directory for DAGs.
• Read access for a user with GID 50000 and UID 50000. For an example setup of this, see Configuring Ip-based access control.

Add an NFS volume to a Deployment​

Workspace editors can configure a new or existing Airflow Deployment to use a provisioned NFS volume for DAG deploys. From there, any member of your organization with write permissions to the NFS volume can deploy DAGs to the Deployment.

1. In the Software UI, create a new Airflow Deployment or open an existing one.

2. Go to the DAG Deployment section of the Deployment's Settings page.

3. For your Mechanism, select NFS Volume Mount:

   

4. In the NFS Location field that appears, enter the location of your volume-based DAG directory as <IP>:/<path> (for example: 192.168.0.1:/path/to/your/dags).

5. Save your changes.

Note: You can also use the Astro CLI to configure NFS volumes. To do so, specify the --nfs-location flag when running astro deployment create or astro deployment update.

Create and mount an Azure file share​

Create and mount an Azure file share to deploy DAGs from an NFS volume to an Astronomer installation on Azure. For additional information about this process, see Premium File Storage.

1. Update your config.yaml file with the following values:

      houston:
        config:
            deployments:
              configureDagDeployment: true
              nfsMountDagDeployment: true

2. Save the config.yaml file and push the configuration change to your platform. See Apply a config change. This process only needs to be completed once for each Software installation.

3. In the Software UI, select a workspace and then the Deployment where you want to add the NFS volume to deploy DAGs.

4. In the DAG Deployment area, select the NFS Volume Mount tab.

5. In the NFS Location field, enter the Azure file share mount address in the following format: nfs://<storage-account-name>.file.core.windows.net:/<storage-account-name>/<file-share-name>.

6. Click Deploy Changes.

7. Add your DAGs to the NFS share.