Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 510 — #536
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21.10 NFS — Shared File Systems
As mentioned in Section 21.9 on page 505, NFS (together with NIS) makes
a network transparent to the user. With NFS, it is possible to distribute file
systems over the network. It does not matter at which terminal a user is
logged in. He will always find himself in the same environment.
As with NIS, NFS is an asymmetric service. There are NFS servers and NFS
clients. A machine can be both — it can supply file systems over the net-
work (export) and mount file systems from other hosts (import). Generally,
these are servers with a very large hard disk capacity, whose file systems
are mounted by other clients.
21.10.1 Importing File Systems with YaST
Any user authorized to do so can mount NFS directories from an NFS
server into his own file tree. This can be achieved most easily using the
YaST module ‘NFS Client’. Just enter the host name of the NFS server, the
directory to import, and the mount point at which to mount this directory
locally. All this is done after clicking ‘Add’ in the first dialog (Figure 21.36).
Figure 21.36: NFS Client Configuration with YaST
21.10.2 Importing File Systems Manually
File systems can easily be imported manually from an NFS server. The
only prerequisite is a running RPC port mapper, which can be started by
entering the command rcportmap start as root. Once this prerequi-
site is met, remote file systems exported on the respective machines can be
mounted in the file system just like local hard disks using the command
mount with the following syntax:
510 21.10. NFS — Shared File Systems