8 Sharing File Systems With Nfs; Installing The Required Software - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 - INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 08-05-2008 Installation Manual

Sharing File Systems with NFS
Distributing and sharing file systems over a network is a common task in corporate
environments. NFS is a proven system that also works together with the yellow pages
protocol NIS. For a more secure protocol that works together with LDAP and may also
be kerberized, check NFSv4.
NFS works with NIS to make a network transparent to the user. With NFS, it is possible
to distribute arbitrary file systems over the network. With an appropriate setup, users
always find themselves in the same environment independent of the terminal they cur-
rently use.
Like NIS, NFS is a client/server system. However, a machine can be both—it can supply
file systems over the network (export) and mount file systems from other hosts (import).
IMPORTANT: Need for DNS
In principle, all exports can be made using IP addresses only. To avoid time-
outs, you should have a working DNS system. This is necessary at least for log-
ging purposes, because the mountd daemon does reverse lookups.

38.1 Installing the Required Software

To configure your host as an NFS client, you do not need to install additional software.
All packages needed to configure an NFS client are installed by default.
Sharing File Systems with NFS
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