Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol. which allowing a user on a client computer to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed.
This article will help you to install and configure NFS on Ubuntu systems and export a directory and mount it on the client system.
Network Details:
We have running two Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Systems in same network 192.168.1.0/24, Below given IPs are configured on server and client, which we will use in this tutorial.
Server: 192.168.1.100 Client: 192.168.1.110
Step 1 – Install NFS Server on Ubuntu
In this step, we will describe you to what packages you need to install and how to install them. Also describes who to export and directory using NFS server.
Use the following command to install the required packages to configure the NFS server.
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server portmap
Step 2 – Export Shares over NFS
Now you need to configure NFS to export directory. For this tutorial we are creating a new directory, you may use any existing directory also.
I need to export /home directory and a new /opt/share directory on my NFS server. /home already exists on my system. Now create a new directory using below command.
sudo mkdir /opt/share sudo chown nobody:nogroup /opt/share
Now edit the nfs server exports configuration file in a text editor as following:
sudo vim /etc/exports
Add following settings:
/home 192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check) /opt/share 192.168.1.110(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)
Here /home can be mounted from the system with any IP of 192.168.1.0/24 LAN network. But /opt/share can only be accessed from IP 192.168.1.110.
Then apply the new settings by running the following command. This will export all directories listed in /etc/exports file.
sudo exportfs -a
To confirm and view exported directory use following command and you will get output like below
sudo exportfs -v [Samput Output] /home 192.168.1.0/24(rw,wdelay,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check) /opt/share 192.168.1.110(rw,wdelay,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)
Step 3 – Mount Share on Client Machine
After completing set up on the server side, login to clients system where we need to configure NFS client and mount exported directory by NFS server.
Install following packages on NFS client system, which is required to mount the remote directory using NFS protocol.
sudo apt-get install nfs-common portmap
Now we need to create mount points for mounting remote nfs exported directories.
sudo mkdir /mnt/share sudo mkdir /mnt/home
After creating mount point, mount remote NFS exported directory using following command.
sudo mount 192.168.1.100:/opt/share /mnt/share sudo mount 192.168.1.100:/home /mnt/home
Check mounted file system using below commands. As per below output both NFS mounted directories are listed at end of the result.
sudo df -h [Sample Output] Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 20G 2.8G 16G 16% / udev 371M 4.0K 371M 1% /dev tmpfs 152M 812K 151M 1% /run none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 378M 8.0K 378M 1% /run/shm /dev/sr0 32M 32M 0 100% /media/CDROM /dev/sr1 702M 702M 0 100% /media/Ubuntu 12.04 LTS i386 192.168.1.100:/opt/share 20G 2.8G 16G 16% /mnt/share 192.168.1.100:/home 20G 2.8G 16G 16% /mnt/home
Step 4 – Setup Auto Mount
Append the following entries to /etc/fstab file to mount NFS directories automatically after system reboot. This will mount directories on startup.
... 192.168.1.100:/home /mnt/home nfs auto,noatime,nolock,bg,nfsvers=3,intr,tcp,actimeo=1800 0 0 192.168.1.100:/opt/share /mnt/share nfs auto,noatime,nolock,bg,nfsvers=3,intr,tcp,actimeo=1800 0 0
Step 5 – Unmount NFS Share
If you want to remove the mounted file system, You can simply unmount it using umount command. Also, you need to remove entries from /etc/fstab (if added)
sudo umount /mnt/share sudo umount /mnt/home
And what do we do if the NFS share requires a password?
nice and clear