See if you can reach the NameNode server with your browser:
http://$namenode.full.hostname:50070
Create hdfs user directory in HDFS:
su $HDFS_USER hadoop fs -mkdir -p /user/hdfs
Try copying a file into HDFS and listing that file:
su $HDFS_USER hadoop fs -copyFromLocal /etc/passwd passwd hadoop fs -ls
Test browsing HDFS:
http://$datanode.full.hostname:50075/browseDirectory.jsp?namenodeInfoPort=50070&dir=/&nnaddr=$namenode.full.hostname:8020