Setting Up NFS

GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide
by Graham Williams

Setting Up NFS

Suppose Alpine (104.27) is the host of the home directories that are exported to Cultus (104.26). On Alpine install nfs-kernel-server:

alpine$ wajig install nfs-kernel-server

Then edit /etc/exports to add the following line:

/home cultus(rw)

Then restart the daemon:

alpine$ wajig restart nfs-kernel-server

On Velox (104.33), an earlier install, nfs-user-server was used rather than the usual nfs-kernel-server because the latter gave the following error when starting the daemons:

nfssvc: Function not implemented

However, nfs-kernel-server is used on Prefect (104.24) which are running kernel 2.4.9 and Alpine (104.27), running 2.4.16.

Errors will also be reported if you have not loaded the nfsd module into the kernel. Be sure to add the following to /etc/modules if you get errors:

nfs nfsd

Now on Cultus (104.26) add the following line to /etc/fstab:

alpine:/home /home nfs defaults 0 0

Then on Cultus (104.26) you can:

cultus$ mount /home

You should also maintain common passwd, shadow, group and gshadow files between the various hosts. See Section 73.1 below for details.