Hadoop: How Client communicates with HDFS?

Question

Is there a way to mount HDFS directly on a Linux and Windows client? I believe I read something about there being some limitations, but that there is possibly a FUSE solution. Any information on this (with links to a how-to) would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Client communicates with HDFS using Hadoop HDFS API.

Client applications talk to the NameNode whenever it wish to locate a file, or when it want to add/copy/move a file on HDFS. The NameNode responds the successful requests by returning a list of relevant DataNode servers. Client applications can talk directly to a DataNode, once the NameNode has provided the location of the data.