NFS Info

NFS Information

Network File System is a very easy and useful method for sharing data among multiple Linux & UNIX computers. The NFS protocol is built into the Linux kernel, so all Linux based systems are capable of utilizing it!

Here are some basic command line utilities that are used from the shell

• showmount

This command shows nfs shared directories/folders available on locally networked machines. As this command is a system utility, it must be run as the root superuser. The best way to do so is by using the sudo command to allow you to run a command as the SuperUser. Information on the sudo command can be found here: SU_Info.

Here is an example of how the command is used. As you can see from this example, the "showmount" command is usually used with the "-e" switch:

[root@server ~]# showmount -e 192.168.200.125

Which produces an output such as this example:

Export list for 192.168.200.125:
/mnt/backup 192.168.200.0/24

The NFS "showmount" command can use either a fully qualified domain name, such as "server.dawgland.com", or an IP address such as "192.168.200.125".

The main purpose of the NFS "showmount" command is to find and determine what NFS host share you want to mount through the network. For example, using the above example for the server at 192.168.200.125, to mount the backup directory/folder through the network on your own local machine, you can then use the "mount" command with the "-nfs" switch to tell the system you are wanting to mount an NFS share through the network, like this:

[root@server ~]# mkdir /mnt/nfs
[root@server ~]# mount -t nfs server:/mnt/backup /mnt/nfs

NFS Reload Process

NFS - How to Reload Changes Made to Configuration