To share files and printers between Linux and Unix computers on a network.

NFS clients are installed with CentOS 5 by default.

To Start NFS Server:

# service nfs start

To Start NFS Server when the system is booted:

# chkconfig nfs on

If NFS is not working make sure

• rpc.mounted
• nfsd
• rpc.rquotad

are running by running this command:

# rpcinfo -p

NFS Severs are very simple to configure:

1. Export the directory to the client.
2. Mount the directory from the NFS client.

The main configuration file is /etc/exports.

Flags:

• * means all hosts
• ro means read only permissions
• rw means read/write permissions
• insecure means allow connections on port above 1024
• sync means changes to be written to disk before a command is complete.
• no_root_squash means remote root user is allowed to access the shared directory.

Example

This example assumes that you have a network between at least two computers.

server1.example.com is the nfs client computer

server2.example.com is the nfs server computer

To setup the NFS server(server2.example.com) to share the /share directory with the host named server1.example.com with read/write permissions, do the following:

1. Create the share directory in the server2.example.com server

   # mkdir /share

2. Copy your files which you want to share to it.

3. # vi /etc/exports

4. Insert the following:

   /share server1.example.com(rw,no_root_squash,sync)

5. Export the directory with the following:

   # exportfs -a

6. Make sure the firewall does not block access to the NFS port by running:

   # system-config-securitylevel

   Allow (NFS4) as "Trusted Services"

7. Set SElinux

   # setsebool -P nfs_export_all_rw 1

8. Flush the table by running:

   # iptables -F

9. Restart the nfs service

   # service nfs restart

10. Show mounted directories:

    #  showmount -e

11. Go to the nfs client computer(server1.example.com) and create a mount point with the following:

    # mkdir /mnt/share

12. mount the nfs server(server2.example.com) by the following command

    # mount -t nfs server2.example.com:/share /mnt/share

13. List the files in the mounted directory

    # ls /mnt/share

14. If you can see your files, you are done.
15. To make the mount permanent:

    # vi /etc/fstab

16. Add the following line:

server2.example.com:/share /mnt/share nfs soft,timeout=100 0 0