NFS, stands for Network File System, helps you to share files and folders between Linux / Unix systems, developed by SUN Microsystems in 1990. NFS enables you to mount a remote share locally. This guide helps you to setup NFS server on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7. Here will see how to install and configure NFS in RHEL 7/CentOS 7
Step 1: Verify a package
Before start installing NFS package make sure it’s not install in a server
# rpm –qa nfs
If there is no output you can proceed step 2, or skip step 2 and move to step 3
Step 2: installing NFS-Server
To install NFS packages in NFS Server, use following commend
# yum install nfs-utils libnfsidmap –y
Once we installed NFS, now we need to start and enable the NFS service
For Enable
# systemctl enable rpcbind
# systemctl enable nfs-server
To Start, make sure you are starting in this order, or you will get error
# systemctl start rpcbind
# systemctl start nfs-server
# systemctl start rpc-statd
# systemctl start nfs-idmapd
Services:
rpcbind : The rpcbind server converts RPC program numbers into universal addresses.
nfs-server : It enables the clients to access NFS shares.
nfs-lock / rpc-statd : NFS file locking. Implement file lock recovery when an NFS server crashes and reboots.
nfs-idmap : It translates user and group ids into names, and to translate user and group names
into ids
Step 3: Creating NFS-Share
Here let we create share folder under / partition
# mkdir /NFSSHARE
Allow the client to read and write in created share folder
# chmod 777 /NFSSHARE
Now we need give entry in “/etc/exports”, to share the folder via NFS
# vim /etc/exports
/NFSSHARE xx.xx.xxx.xxx(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
Here,
/NFSSHARE – is a share folder
xx.xx.xxx.xxx You can replace this with any IP
rw – read/write permission to the shared folder
sync – all changes to the according filesystem are immediately flushed to disk;
no_root_squash : By default, any file request made by user root on the client machine is treated as by user nobody on the server. (Exactly which UID the request is mapped to depends on the UID of user “nobody” on the server, not the client.) If no_root_squash is selected, then root on the client machine will have the same level of access to the files on the system as root on the server.
Step 4: Export the share folder
For exporting share folder
# exportfs –r
More,
exportfs -v : Displays a list of shares files and export options on a server
exportfs -a : Exports all directories listed in /etc/exports
exportfs -u : Unexport one or more directories
exportfs -r : Reexport all directories after modifying /etc/exports
Configure Firewall:
We need to configure firewall on NFS server to allow client servers to access NFS shares
firewall-cmd –permanent –zone public –add-service mountd
firewall-cmd –permanent –zone public –add-service rpc-bind
firewall-cmd –permanent –zone public –add-service nfs
firewall-cmd –reload
Step 5: Install NFS in Client
Install and start the NFS service in client (RHEL 6)
To install NFS
# yum install nfs* –y
To enable NFS
# chkconfig nfs on
# chkconfig rpcbind on
To start the service
# /etc/init.d/nfs start
# /etc/init.d/rpcbind start
Step 6: Mounting share in Client
Before mounting share folder, let check the available shares using
# showmount –e IP
Export list for xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
/NFSSHARE yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
Replace with valid IPs
Now we can mount the nfs share in client, to mount create /mnt/myshare folder
# mkdir /mnt/myshare
# mount <Server.IP>:/NFSSHARE /mnt/myshare
Now share folder mounted successfully. This is temporary mount only, it will went of after reboot, for permanent mount we need to make entries in /etc/fstab
# vim /etc/fstab
<Server IP>:/NFSSHARE/ /mnt/myshare nfs rw,sync,hard,intr 0 0
Note: this is sample entry only.
Once you make entry now you can reboot the client and check.
To UnMount:
# umount /mnt/myshare
