Chapter Summary

   

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The Network File System (NFS) is used to share file systems over a network. The system works in the client/server model and is based on RPC. An NFS server exports its shared file systems that can be mounted remotely by NFS clients on local mount points. A system may act as an NFS server and client at the same time. The portmap RPC daemon is used on HP-UX version 10.20 and earlier, while rpcbind is used on later HP-UX versions. The names of exported file systems are listed in the /etc/exports file on an NFS server. These file systems are exported at boot time. File systems can also be exported using the exportfs command at any later stage. The showmount command lists all file systems that are remotely mounted by NFS clients. The /etc/fstab file is used on an NFS client to mount remote file systems from a server at boot time. The mount command can be used to mount remote file systems at any later stage. The same command is also used to list mounted file systems. Many daemon processes are used on an NFS client and server. These processes help to provide reliable file system access over a network.

The rpcinfo command is used for troubleshooting RPC-based services including NFS. It lists all registered RPC services on a local or remote host. The same command can be used to verify that a particular RPC service is operational and is responding to client requests . The nfsstat command is another useful tool for NFS troubleshooting.

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