NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Configuring and Administering NFS Services
Configuring and Administering NFS Clients
Chapter 2 73
Configuring and Administering NFS Clients
An NFS client is a system that mounts remote directories using NFS.
When a client mounts a remote filesystem, it does not make a copy of the
filesystem. The mounting process uses a series of remote procedure calls
that enable the client to transparently access the filesystem on the
server’s disk. To users, these mounted remote directories appear as if
they are a part of the local filesystem. An NFS client can also be an NFS
server. NFS filesystems can also be automounted using AutoFS. For
information on how to automount a filesystem, see Chapter 3,
“Configuring and Administering AutoFS,” on page 99.
NFS Client Configuration Files and Daemons
This section describes the NFS client configuration files and daemons.
Configuration
Files
Table 2-5 describes the NFS configuration files and their functions.
Daemons Table 2-5 describes the NFS client daemons and their functions.
Table 2-5 NFS client configuration files
File Name Function
/etc/mnttab Contains the list of filesystems that are currently mounted.
/etc/dfs/fstypes Contains the default distributed filesystem type.
/etc/fstab Contains the list of filesystems that are automatically
mounted at system boot time.
Table 2-6 NFS client daemons
Daemon Name Function
rpc.lockd Supports record lock and share lock operations on the NFS
files.
rpc.statd Maintains a list of clients that have performed the file
locking operation over NFS against the server. These clients
are monitored and notified in the event of a system crash.