Chapter 22. NFS: Sharing Filesystems

22. NFS: Sharing Filesystems

IN THIS CHAPTER

Setting Up an NFS Client	676
JumpStart: Mounting a Remote Directory Hierarchy	676
Improving Performance	680
Setting Up an NFS Server	682
JumpStart: Configuring an NFS Server Using system-config-nfs	683
Exporting a Directory Hierarchy	684
automount: Automatically Mounts Directory Hierarchies	690

The NFS (Network Filesystem) protocol, a UNIX de facto standard originally developed by Sun Microsystems, allows a server to share selected local directory hierarchies with client systems on a heterogeneous network. NFS runs on UNIX, DOS, Windows, VMS, Linux, and more. Files on the remote computer (the fileserver) appear as if they are present on the local system (the client). The physical location of a file is irrelevant to an NFS user.

NFS reduces storage needs and system administration workload. As an example, each system in a company traditionally holds its own copy of an application program. To upgrade the program, the administrator needs to upgrade it on each system. NFS allows you to store a copy of a program on a single system and give other users access to it over the network. This scenario minimizes storage requirements by reducing the number of locations that need to maintain the same data. In addition to boosting efficiency, NFS gives users on the network access to the same data (not just application programs), thereby improving data consistency and reliability. By consolidating data, NFS reduces administrative overhead and provides a convenience to users.