diff --git a/ansible/roles/compute_init/files/compute-init.yml b/ansible/roles/compute_init/files/compute-init.yml
index b09bd7f3b..25af01154 100644
--- a/ansible/roles/compute_init/files/compute-init.yml
+++ b/ansible/roles/compute_init/files/compute-init.yml
@@ -61,7 +61,13 @@
         owner: slurm
         group: root
         mode: u=rX,g=rwX,o=
-    
+
+    - name: Wait for NFS to reachable (checks host network up)
+      ansible.builtin.wait_for:
+        port: 2049
+        host: '{{ server_node_ip }}'
+        timeout: 120
+
     - name: Mount /mnt/cluster
       mount:
         path: /mnt/cluster
@@ -70,8 +76,6 @@
         opts: ro,sync
         state: mounted
       register: _mount_mnt_cluster
-      ignore_errors: true
-      # TODO: add some retries here?
 
     - block:
         - name: Report skipping initialization if cannot mount nfs
diff --git a/environments/.stackhpc/tofu/cluster_image.auto.tfvars.json b/environments/.stackhpc/tofu/cluster_image.auto.tfvars.json
index 7e213c00c..01f61fa0a 100644
--- a/environments/.stackhpc/tofu/cluster_image.auto.tfvars.json
+++ b/environments/.stackhpc/tofu/cluster_image.auto.tfvars.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
     "cluster_image": {
-        "RL8": "openhpc-RL8-250326-1048-3e132168",
-        "RL9": "openhpc-RL9-250326-1049-3e132168"
+        "RL8": "openhpc-RL8-250331-1627-cccd6c9c",
+        "RL9": "openhpc-RL9-250331-1627-cccd6c9c"
     }
 }