III. Basic NFS Configuration
 

A. NFS Server
 
1. Download and install the nfs-server RPM package from linux.fnal.gov

2. To configure a Linux system as an NFS server the nfs and the portmap daemons must be installed and started and the /etc/export file must contain volume, machine and permission entries. An example entry looks like this:
 

/mnt/51home/redhat-5.1 topaz.fnal.gov(ro)

This specifies that the directory /mnt/51home/redhat-5.1 can be exported to topaz.fnal.gov in read-only mode.

3. Restart the NFS daemon with 'exportfs.'
 

B. NFS Client
 
1. To configure a machine as an NFS client one only needs to do one of two things:
 
a. specify the server volume and mount point on the command line (as root):
 
mount sapphire.fnal.gov:/mnt/51home/redhat-5.1 /mnt/51home

b. add an entry to the /etc/fstab file like that looks like this:
 

sapphire.fnal.gov:/mnt/51home/redhat-5.1 /mnt/51home nfs soft,intr,ro 0 0

This specifies the machine, volume, mount point, filesystem type, options, dump and fsck order, respectively. The options specify that this is a soft connection, i.e., if it is broken it will timeout, it is interruptible, and it is mounted as read-only.