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Understanding NFS
LiquidPC writes: "ONLamp.com's Big Scary Daemons section has yet another great new BSD article, this one on Understanding NFS and using it in FreeBSD."
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← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Interview with Pete Seeger
Press for Conversion! subscriber and patron of the Coalition to
Oppose the Arms Trade, Pete Seeger was interviewed on May 9, 1995
by Richard Sanders. Future issues will feature interviews with
other subscribers.
P4C: I wanted to ask about the role of music in conveying important
messages.
PS: This is often asked of me and I can't prove a god-damned thing.
All I can do is quote people through history who said that music is
important. Plato said it is very dangerous for the wrong kind of
music to be allowed in the Republic. We know that the Catholic
Church tried to control music for a thousand years or more and most
countries try and keep revolutionary music off the air. There are
cases of songs which, Anatol France says, have overthrown empires.
He was probably thinking of La Marseillaise. The song Lilly Bolero
is said to have cost King James the throne. It was a hilarious,
very danceable little tune. People could dance while they sang it.
It spread through England, Scotland and Ireland.
P4C: You have your own experiences of being kept off the radio and
TV. During the McCarthy era you were blacklisted. They must have
thought you were a threat.
PS: It was part of the stupidity of that time. Now, they do the
same thing but in much more clever and subtle ways. They say, "Oh
yes you can say anything you want but of course prime time is very
expensive and we only put stuff on what people want to hear, which
will make money." In effect, songs are blacklisted now. I don't get
asked on TV that often.
P4C: This week, many people around the world are thinking back to
the end of the WWII and events of 50 years ago. What significance
do you attach to those events and perhaps you could also reflect
on the way they're being dealt with in the media.
PS: Well, I confess I was not optimistic and never have been. As
long as the capitalist system is around, there will be people
wanting to take advantage of it to push there own agenda. Have you
ever heard this quote from Abraham Lincoln? It was written in a
letter to somebody on Nov. 21, 1864:
"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war, which has cost
a vast treasure of blood and money, is almost over but I see in the
future a crisis approaching that fills me with anxiety. As a
result of the war, corporations have become enthroned and an era of
corruption in high places will follow. The moneyed power of the
country will endeavour to prolong its rule by preying upon the
prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in a few
hands and the Republic destroyed. I feel at this time more anxiety
for the future than at any time in the past, even in the midst of
war."
So, I confess, I was not optimistic at the end of WWII. I
appreciated the fact that they were trying to start the UN but,
after all, they tried to start the League of Nations after WWI and
it didn't have much success either. Now, we have individuals in the
U.S. who have more annual incomes than the budgets of many small
countries.
P4C: How accurate do you think Lincoln's projections were of today?
PS: I think that the world is in greater danger than it's ever been
because science and technology have made weapons so much more
available. As we saw in Oklahoma, you can make a weapon out of
fertilizer now. However, good things can come from bad and maybe
when the world realizes the danger we're in, we'll be a lot more
careful about talking angrily to each other and about any killing.
The date of the shooting at Waco should be remembered. It was
one of the most stupid things done by the Clinton administration.
You can't blame the President entirely, he's busy on a million
things. He assumed that the FBI and the Justice Department would
know how to handle it. But they did screwy things like playing the
most unnerving music outside, blasting it at these people and
trying to make them go crazy. They should have played beautiful
hymns to calm them down.
I think that people who try to destroy their enemies are very
foolish. I was once in the presence of somebody who said, "I wish
somebody would assassinate Reagan," and a much more sensible person
said, "I hope I will never hear such a suggestion as long as I
live." This stupid person shut up immediately. Reagan was one of
the worst presidents that this country ever had and we'll be paying
for his foolishness and crimes for a long while. But assassination
is not the answer.
I hope Reagan lives long enough to know how foolish he was and
to see the Republican party repudiated. He's in good health but I'm
afraid with Alzeimers he won't be really conscious. They'll say,
"Mr. Reagan, the Republican party is having a meeting and we hardly
know how to tell you but they are giving speeches regretting that
you were their president." He says, "huh huh huh, what's a party?"
He'll be ninety five or a hundred at the time.
P4C: Do you support the Democrats?
PS: I support them when they do something good. I think that
Clinton has made so many mistakes that its hard to support him
much. If he learns something from his past two years and changes,
I might support him in the next election.
Basic to the saving of democracy is how people vote. I'm
convinced that the powers that be are glad to see 67% of America
not bothering to vote. Nobody polls them because they'll find out
how many have given up on government. They think that the Democrats
are as bad as the Republicans.
P4C: There's some truth to that. Democrats aren't that much
different. You might even say they're not as honest as Republicans
in saying what they really believe.
PS: Politicians cannot be as honest as they'd like to be and get
elected. That's one of the faults of our system. It's winner take
all. Proportional representation would make it possible to be much
more honest and still get elected. Back in the 1930s and '40s we
had two communists on the New York City Council. They'd say, "Sure
I'm a communist but we have a hundred thousand communists in New
York City. Why shouldn't I be on the City Council?"
P4C: Do you have any memories from during the war that you'd like
to share?
PS: Well I must confess, I'm no great pundit. The significance of
Hiroshima did not really filter through to me for a couple of
months, until I started having nightmares about it. When I first
heard it, I was just thinking, "Well, war is horrible thing; it's
horrible to bomb a city, but it's horrible to kill anybody." I
played a banjo through WWII. It was my big contribution to winning
the war against fascism, pickin' a banjo.
P4C: What sort of songs were you pickin'?
PS: Oh, I sang soldier songs mostly, and pop songs and the
occasional old country songs and old folk songs. I'd get a crowd
singing with me. Once in awhile, I'd sing a song about Hitler, like
"Dear Mr. President." When first in the army I won an amateur
contest singing, "Round and round Hitler's grave he won't get up no
more."
P4C: How do you view that experience?
PS: Well, you learn from everything. It was very educational. I've
been kind of a pacifist most of my life, a pacifist kind of a
communist. I think, if I'd been smart, I would have joined
A.J.Muste, who'd been a communist but then quit. He said the
problem with revolutionaries is they don't realize that when they
take power by force of arms, they try to maintain power by force of
arms. The next thing you know, they're shooting at each other.
P4C: How has the peace movement changed over the years that you've
been associated with it.
PS: In the first place, beware of the definite article "t h e." I
think the human race and the English language might be better
without it. The truth, the revolution, the lord, the church, the
reason. The peace movement was one thing in the thirties, another
in the forties, another in the fifties and another in the sixties.
The peace movement is definitely growing. I think what you are
doing is absolutely wonderful. I hope you are growing. Churches are
getting involved. The terrible bombing in Oklahoma is going to be
educational to many. Some church people are realizing, there are
those who claim to be Christians but who are all for killing. It
may make people think twice about supporting any kind of killing.
Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, had a great line. She said,
"Progress is when the proportion of people rises that thinks that
it's a bad thing to take human life." She didn't mention more
health, more money, more housing, more food, more communication. I
agree with her 100%.
P4C: If you were president, how would you reinvest the nation's
vast resources.
PS: I think I would first of all take the money out of the
information business. I would not completely outlaw private TV but
would demand that in return for using the people's air, that TV
stations give a huge amount of free time for political campaigns
and that other advertising be outlawed. Herbert Hoover said, "It is
unthinkable that our airwaves are controlled by advertising." As
president, I'd say, "Let's open up our airwaves to all sorts of
opinions. If the far right has opinions, let them be heard. If the
far left has opinions, let them be heard. If upside down people
want to be heard or right side up people, let them be heard." It
may be confusing to some but in the long run we'll learn how to
talk with each other. People who say stupid things will find they
have a limited audience.
I would immediately start discussing proportional
representation and quit this system of winner take all. A friend
of mine in Holland, said "Oh you Americans have two political
parties. That's just one more than the Soviets had. We have
twenty." How do they govern? By coalitions. Instead of having to
lie to put your coalition together, you know you're dealing with
skilled politicians, so you say, "Look I'll vote for this, if you
vote for that." It doesn't make heaven on earth but it makes for a
more peaceful country.
Let me reiterate that what you are doing is right at the
cutting edge of the future because I believe that within the next
ten years we're going to have to start limiting arms more. What's
going on now at the UN is absolutely shocking. I spoke with Daniel
Ellsberg recently. He says the U.S. is just stonewalling and other
countries are just astonished. They say, "Aren't you willing to say
that you look forward to someday not having any atom bombs?" "No,
we can't say that." "Aren't you willing to say that you won't use
the atom bomb first?" "Oh, no, we can't say that." The U.S. is not
willing to make a single concession. It's shocking. Other nations
are dumbfounded.
P4C: Well perhaps someday there will be a global movement to
boycott the U.S., just as there was one to boycott South Africa.
PS: Its very possible. I have almost weekly talks with friends who
are so discouraged they feel like leaving the country as they did
during the Vietnam war.
P4C: Is that because of the rise of the Republicans and the right
wing?
PS: Yes, I remind them that the Republicans only had 17% of the
votes. Only 33% of the electorate voted. Democrats got 16% and
Republicans got 17%. That's their great mandate.
P4C: Did anyone ever ask you to run?
PS: Oh, I've been asked occasionally but they were very foolish to
ask me. I am not a good organizer at all. I get ideas but I don't
know how to follow them up. My life is a chaos of uncompleted
projects. Fortunately, one or two of them have succeeded.
To order Pete's book, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (complete
with 200 songs) contact Sing Out, at (610) 865-5366.
SOURCE: "Press for Conversion!", Spring (Issue # 21) May 1995.
"Press for Conversion!" is published electronically and in hard-
copy format by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT).
For more information, contact:
COAT, 489 Metcalfe St., Ottawa ON K1S 3N7
Tel.: (613) 231-3076 Fax: (613) 231-2614
E-mail: ad207@freenet.carleton.ca
~
MU!
I just don't have the motivation to do the lyrics thing anymore. Sigh. I get more and more depressed every day. I really need a girlfriend. It's Saturday night at 1AM and I'm sitting here with my dick in my hand and posting to fucking Slashdot. Are there any chicks out there who would like to wrap their lips around a below-average sized penis? I promise it'll only be a 3 minute job.. Fuck..
RMS's sister?
face facts, can someone point out any good points about bsd? no, because there are none, i nknow more than you and can debate anything you say, lets go!
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
I have NetBSD installed and it kicks ass!
Not too sure if he is a demon though.
Here's a printer and human friendly version, for those of you, who don't like half-screen animated ads inside the text you try to read.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dead
I'm appalled that he considers IP address matching to be a way of preventing abuse. Sure, his cable modem is a separate interface so he can use a firewall to block it. But what if you're on a large untrusted LAN and you want to share files between two machines? I have exactly this problem (I have a laptop and a desktop at university) and I'm still looking for a simple yet secure way to share between them without allowing anyone to just spoof the IP address (and preferrably without transmitting my secret plans for world domination over the wire in the clear).
I just started up my web browser and began to click through my various daily news sites when I saw the huge breaking news headline on CNN.com that read Bob Hope dead at 99.
I'm both shocked and saddenned by this loss, as Bob was a great man who was known by many as America's most prized ambassador of good will around the world.
He was born Leslie Towns Hope on May 29, 1903 in Eltham, England, and made his show business debut in 1924 in a dancing act with partner Lloyd Durbin in a Fatty Arbuckle Revue.
Mr. Hope starred in 60 movies and has been honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences five times. Even more impressive, he was cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as "The Most Honored Entertainer" of all time with over 1,500 awards and citations for humanitarian and professional efforts, including the "Congressional Gold Medal" the "Medal of Freedom," the "Honor of Knight Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire," and the "Congressional Resolution 75." This last honor made Bob Hope the first American in history to be made an honorary veteran.
This wonderful man has also received 54 Honorary Degrees including seven Doctor of Laws, 19 Doctor of Humane Letters, and 11 Doctor of Humanities.
Younger people may know Mr. Hope best for his passion for the game of golf that is so legendary. For 40 years, he has hosted the "Bob Hope Desert Classic" in Palm Springs, raising millions for Desert Charities.
He was a great man and will surely be missed.
Thanks for the memories,
Ivy League Troll
Bob Hope dead at 99
Is it just me, or is NFS an acronym for No Fucking System?
Seriously, I'm doing a journaled database file system that runs way better than some old dog FS which has had it's day.
Any suggestions for Kauri would be good, it's a grid file system with CVS like features.
All Your BSD Are Belong To Us!
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Amazing enough, BSD had working NFS, what, almost
20 years ago? And now the true blue BSD unix
you have come to know and love is freely available
to run on your PC.
Second, if you export NFS to the world, you're insane and deserve what you get. If you want remote filesystem access, use a secure protocol like the Self-Certifing Filesystem (SFS). SFS also avoids completely the problem of having a shared UID space.
Finally, his advice to mount your filesystems intr is good. But insufficient - also mount them soft, so that filesystem calls will eventually timeout if the server goes poof.
Pre-planning is useful, as always
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Who leaves a bigger load in the commode?
He or CowboyNeal?
I don't think this article qualifies as "understanding nfs". NFS is a hairy beast, and all this does is get you started from the userland point of view. What makes nfs so hairy is the numerous ways it can fail or at least not do what you expect.
-Peter
== Just my opinion(s)
I've been looking on Google for about ten minutes for information about NFS I could understand and, just sort of a broad overview of it. Always something germane and informative on Slashdot ;).
1. It's difficult to find a good Windows based NFS client. I was using time limited demo clients for an educational setting and they would cause all sorts of problems like locking up of Win95 - yeah I know, its probably Win95. How has it changed for Windows now?
2. I had a big security concern that anyone who had a laptop with Unix loaded and running nfsclient would be able to log in with root privileges. You needed root access on the client not on the server and then you could su to any user.
I can see now that with the widespread use of DHCP servers, that restricting access to IP addresses won't work.
There is already stuff about NFS! The NFS HOWTO can be found at http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/
What's that? slashdot for dummies? What will it me next? -- link to step-by-step manual of XFree86 configuration for matrox G200 PCI card? Nah, XF86Config is too complex, probably walkthrough on changing display resolution in winXP will be next. go-jenny-go!
A big stick up Chuck Jones' ass. RIH, Fucker.
Why is FreeBSD so unpopular? I'll tell you why. Click that link and take a good look at that guy's face. There's your problem right there.
Linus is a stud. Steve Jobs could give a heterosexual guy a wet dream (that's nothing to be ashamed of, ya know). This FreeBSD article-writing guy flips burgers. Hell, next to him Bill Gates looks like Captain America.
Do a situp, for Christ's Sakes!
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
Recently, href="http://goatse.cx">Slashdot confirmed that FreeBSD has been given away to FreeBSD Mall for a carton of Winstons and a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. This only serves to confirm the fact that FreeBSD is unwanted, doomed to be passed around like a harelip orphan from one foster parent to another.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dead
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As th situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shround over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
Just a tip... by default, FreeBSD uses conservative NFS mounting options. Note that these work well when trying to interoperate with other Unixes; everybody speaks the lowest common denominator. You can use mount options to augment NFS performance but reduce interoperability somewhat. These options aren't necessary when you're working with one or two clients, but as your NFS installation grows, you'll find them helpful. They may or may not work with other operating systems; it depends on what those OSs support.
It's Saturday night at 1AM and I'm sitting here with my dick in my hand and posting to fucking Slashdot.
You're at the wrong site, chap!
Problem Solved.
Jews always like to stick their big noses into other peoples' business. Personally, I think
Hitler had the right idea. Read about Jew Media Control. It will make you realize
that the degenerate images we see in the movies and on TV are no accident. It is all planned by the Jews.
Go ahead and bang you collective heads up against
a brick wall, trying to learn cryptic crap to make BSD work.
Or you could just get a Mac with OSX, which takes BSD and (finally) puts a decent user interface on it where, all that Unixey stuff is handled automagically. Just a few mouse clicks from the totally seamless and transparent GUI app, and you're done. No need to waste time learning all that propeller-head garbage.
See the advantages of having a company that knows what it's doing write your OS?
NFS has a long history of insecurities.(Link takes a little while to load...)
Also in the article he claims: "You can reboot a server and the client won't crash." Maybe not crash but at least with Solaris (in my experience) you hang the entire system during the reboot. Sometimes it comes back and sometimes it doesn't.
For a secure alternative that runs on *BSD/Solaris/Linux w/(2.4 Kernels) try out:
Self-Certifying Filesystem.
The authors do warn that it is in alpha stage but also claim they have never lost a file. VERY cool project.
And of course as the OpenBSD Journal has noted, SysAdmin Mag is running an article on Tunneling NFS over SSH.
Comments about /etc/exports... /etc/exports would be incompatible with that from any other Unix."
/etc/exports? Of course you can have seperate directories from the same partition on different lines!! In the man page they have an example of it! Plus there is this comment lifted directly from the FreeBSD 4.5 man page for /etc/exports.
"There are no identifiers between the components of the line. Yes, it would be easier to read if we could put each shared directory on its own line, but we can't; they're all on the same partition. The FreeBSD team could rewrite this so that it had more structure, but then our
What?!?! Did this guy even read the man page for
"Mount points for a filesystem may appear on multiple lines each with different sets of hosts and export options."
Michael's articles are usually of excellent quality, but I can't believe how many other mistakes he's made! The article is written to familiarize a "junior" sys admin to NFS, but only teaches them bad habits. Hopefully he'll do a little more research for his future articles.
I've spent quite some time trying to find a nfs client for windows. Does such a beast exist?
I've found more than enough shareware/etc... but have been unable to find a open source solution.
Does anyone know of a free nfs client for windows?
I haven't had any SFS problems for over 6 months, since 0.5i. But the notice is correct - your mileage may vary, and use with caution. I've seen SFS tickle bugs in the Linux NFS implementation, but the latest Linux NFS support is much improved over 2.2. On Open/FreeBSD, it's quite solid, IMHO.
For further info, browse the SFS-users mailing list. It's a good way to get a feel for the issues involved in running SFS.
(Obligatory disclosure: I'm not one of the developers, but my office is across the hall).
..this intro to NFS is kinda light for /. Understanding NFS -- I believed I was going to be reading about the gushy internal stuff that goes on but in layman terms, but rather, I found stuff that any *nix admin here on /. has known for years. Don't slip. First, that horrible reference to that horrible Google ad-words article, then this.
NFS rocks. Coming from the PC world, I was shocked when I discovered how long this useful standard has been around, and how compatible the implementations are... A little while ago I added an old SGI Indy to my Linux network. I tried mounting my primary NFS share on it, expecting to spend several hours troubleshooting in IRIX before it would work. And whaddya know, it came up perfectly the first time =).
For those who are interested in a more secure NFS, i found an interesting article about encypted NFS (via openssh) It's a good read, and really interesting! Unfortunately it's written for Linux, but it's easy to adapt it to *BSD. Check it out here!
Life sucks.
The article makes quite an interesting read. I enjoyed reading it, and if you want even more information, read this.
As we all know pointers make code insecure.
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shround over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
This is from a link I saw on LinuxToday last week
:)
Run SSH to set up a port forwarding "tunnel" and then run NFS through it so that all traffic will be encrypted. It will slow down performance but it's better than living in fear!
http://www.samag.com/print/documentID=22157
P.S. SSH rules!!!
- security. If you run it (and yes it can be convenient to have, say, all your mp3 files accessible from every client on your local net) then do so behind a big fat firewall.
:-)
- stability. Notably you shouldn't use softupdates on an NFS export or sooner or later you're going to see panics.
- performance. Is awful. Even copying through scp is faster than NFS.
In short, NFS has its merits but for anything serious or anything in an unprotected network zone I'd definately vote against it.
Strange BTW that the article doesn't mention the AMD (auto mount daemon). While I personally found it hideous its worth mentioning that one can have their shares auto mounted and unmounted on demand.
Last point: NFS was thought up by Sun. What were we expecting anyway
"You can reboot a server and the client won't crash. It won't be able to access files on the server's export while the server is down, but once it returns, you'll pick up right where things left off. Other network file sharing systems are not so resilient."
From regular personal experience, I can state that NFS is hardly so robust under HPUX.... Is BSD really this foolproof?
I had alot of fun with NFS during my Univerity years. Sure it has some nice features as it's lightning-fast and stateless but it's totally unsecure, period.
The NFS server has two parts, the authentication part and the data-server part. The authentication part authenticates based on the IP address of the requester, if successful, it will send the requester the 'key' for the export.
After that, anybody can use that key to request files from the data-server part. And from any IP address!!
There exist a very nice ftp-like tool that lets you play with NFS systems, enter the key manually or use the UID overflow bug to get root privs. And this is only the beginning of the fun !!
Trust me, "Don't use NFS" unless you are running it on a network that is not connected to the rest of the world, and you trust everyone that has access to this network.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
At one point I was planing on installing FreeBSD along side slackware linux. The installation was much too tedious however.
Click here or here.
Our experience is that on Solaris, if you have an NFS mount that has a failed (offline) server, you will not get an SSH login prompt. OpenSSH apparently scans the file system before providing the prompt, and since it is waiting for NFS to return the mount's info, it never gives the prompt. Would mounting partitions 'soft' fix this?
Yes.
These Windows NFS clients are typically over $300 per seat - which is simply insane. Is there a high quality NFS client for Windows under $100?
Samba is good, but it has to run on the (UNIX) machine that can see the native file system. I'd like to bypass Samba and have the Windows clients talk to NFS directly.
The article is correct; only mountpoints (and not subdirectories) can be entries in /etc/exports. From the `exports' man page (emphasis mine):
Furthermore, the only example given in the man page explicitly identifies the directories listed as mountpoints.
Please don't moderate up comments that sound informational without actually checking your facts first.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Personally I recommend never using NFS. Heck, I wrote a paper about it. It's a bit old, and doesn't cover NFSv4. But of course, NFSv4 doesn't address the basic issue of using the wrong model for the problem, so that's not a big deal. :)
re uid/username: mea culpa.
My original title on this piece was "Introduction to NFS". To the best of my knowledge, ten people in the world truly, deeply understand NFS. Six have won Nobel Prizes, three are in the Institute for the Criminally Insane, and one is not allowed sharp objects and drools on himself a lot. O'Reilly does not seem to like my original titles... ah, well.
Finally, if Slashdot was going to pick up one of my articles... why, my God, did they choose this one? There are many far more interesting and informative Big Scary Daemons out there... take a look at "Linux Emulation, the Hard Way" for one I'm especially proud of. Sigh. Obviously, they don't want the editorial standard to go above that maintained by other Slashdot authors...
There has always been a problem that NFS was compatable across OS'es, but only SunOS/Solaris respected file locks held across the network (via lockd) - is this still the case?
Well, just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. NFS doesn't export directories--NFS exports filesystems. If you have a FS mounted on /share, and you export /share/somedir, you've actually exported all of /share, even though you may not realize it.