Summary

NFS is an extremely useful tool for performing file sharing between UNIX and Linux systems. Unlike Samba, NFS provides explicit support for UNIX-style file ownership and permissions. NFS configuration tends to be simpler than Samba configuration, as well. On the other hand, NFS relies upon a trusted hosts security model, and if you don't keep your usernames synchronized across clients and servers, you'll have to resort to a username mapping scheme such as storing user IDs in a special configuration file.