Every operating system, Linux included, has quirks and deviations in the behavior of its NFS implementation -- sometimes because the protocols are vague, sometimes because they leave gaping security holes. Linux will work properly with all major vendors' NFS implementations, as far as we know. However, there may be extra steps involved to make sure the two OSes are communicating clearly with one another. This section details those steps.
In general, it is highly ill-advised to attempt to use a Linux machine with a kernel before 2.2.18 as an NFS server for non-Linux clients. Implementations with older kernels may work fine as clients; however if you are using one of these kernels and get stuck, the first piece of advice we would give is to upgrade your kernel and see if the problems go away. The user-space NFS implementations also do not work well with non-Linux clients.
Following is a list of known issues for using Linux together with major operating systems.
The format for the /etc/exports file for our example in Section 3, “Setting Up an NFS Server” is:
/usr slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com,access=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com /home slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com,rw=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com
AIX uses the file /etc/filesystems instead of /etc/fstab. A sample entry, based on the example in Section 4, “Setting up an NFS Client”, looks like this:
/mnt/home: dev = "/home" vfs = nfs nodename = master.foo.com mount = true options = bg,hard,intr,rsize=1024,wsize=1024,vers=2,proto=udp account = false
insecure ports (i.e., ports above 1024, to which non-root users can bind). Older versions of AIX do not seem to require this.vers=2 and/or proto=udp in your mount options./etc/exports seems to sometimes cause clients to lose mounts when another client is reset. This can be fixed by listing out hosts explicitly.In general, Tru64 Unix servers work quite smoothly with Linux clients. The format for the /etc/exports file for our example in Section 4, “Setting up an NFS Client” is:
/usr slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com \ -access=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com \ /home slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com \ -rw=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com \ -root=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com
(The root option is listed in the last entry for informational purposes only; its use is not recommended unless necessary.)
Tru64 checks the /etc/exports file every time there is a mount request so you do not need to run the exportfs command; in fact on many versions of Tru64 Unix the command does not exist.)
There are two issues to watch out for here. First, Tru64 Unix mounts using Version 3 NFS by default. You will see mount errors if your Linux server does not support Version 3 NFS. Second, in Tru64 Unix 4.x, NFS locking requests are made by daemon. You will therefore need to specify the insecure_locks option on all volumes you export to a Tru64 Unix 4.x client; see the exports man pages for details.
A sample /etc/exports entry on HP-UX looks like this:
/usr -ro,access=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com /home -rw=slave1.foo.com:slave2.fo.com:root=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com
(The root option is listed in the last entry for informational purposes only; its use is not recommended unless necessary.)
A sample /etc/exports entry on IRIX looks like this:
/usr -ro,access=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com /home -rw=slave1.foo.com:slave2.fo.com:root=slave1.foo.com:slave2.foo.com
(The root option is listed in the last entry for informational purposes only; its use is not recommended unless necessary.)
There are reportedly problems when using the nohide option on exports to linux 2.2-based systems. This problem is fixed in the 2.4 kernel. As a workaround, you can export and mount lower-down file systems separately.
As of Kernel 2.4.17, there continue to be several minor interoperability issues that may require a kernel upgrade. In particular:
http://www.fys.uio.no/~trondmy/src/2.4.17/linux-2.4.17-seekdir.dif
http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/SourceForge/789/0/7777454/
http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/789/2001/9/100/6531172/.
The naming version can be found by using (on the IRIX server):
xfs_growfs -n mount_point
The workaround is to export these file systems using the -32bitclients option in the /etc/exports file. The fix is to convert the file system to naming version=2. Unfortunately the only way to do this is by a backup/mkfs/restore.
mkfs_xfson IRIX 6.5.14 (and above) creates naming version=2XFS file systems by default. On IRIX 6.5.5 to 6.5.13, use:
mkfs_xfs -n version=2 device
Versions of IRIX prior to 6.5.5 do not support naming version=2 XFS file systems.
Irix versions up to 6.5.12 have problems mounting file systems exported from Linux boxes - the mount point "gets lost," e.g.,:
# mount linux:/disk1 /mnt # cd /mnt/xyz/abc # pwd /xyz/abc
This is known IRIX bug (SGI bug 815265 - IRIX not liking file handles of less than 32 bytes), which is fixed in IRIX 6.5.13. If it is not possible to upgrade to IRIX 6.5.13, then the unofficial workaround is to force the Linux nfsd to always use 32 byte file handles. A number of patches exist - see:
Solaris has a slightly different format on the server end from other operating systems. Instead of /etc/exports, the configuration file is /etc/dfs/dfstab. Entries are of the form of a share command, where the syntax for the example in Section 4, “Setting up an NFS Client” would look like:
share -o rw=slave1,slave2 -d "Master Usr" /usr
and instead of running exportfs after editing, you run shareall.
Solaris servers are especially sensitive to packet size. If you are using a Linux client with a Solaris server, be sure to set rsize and wsize to 32768 at mount time.
Finally, there is an issue with root squashing on Solaris: root gets mapped to the user noone, which is not the same as the user nobody. If you are having trouble with file permissions as root on the client machine, be sure to check that the mapping works as you expect.
Solaris clients will regularly produce the following message:
svc: unknown program 100227 (me 100003)
This happens because Solaris clients, when they mount, try to obtain ACL information - which Linux obviously does not have. The messages can safely be ignored.
There are two known issues with diskless Solaris clients: First, a kernel version of at least 2.2.19 is needed to get /dev/null to export correctly. Second, the packet size may need to be set extremely small (i.e., 1024) on diskless sparc clients because the clients do not know how to assemble packets in reverse order. This can be done from /etc/bootparams on the clients.
SunOS only has NFS Version 2 over UDP.
On the server end, SunOS uses the most traditional format for its /etc/exports file. The example in Section 4, “Setting up an NFS Client” would look like:
/usr -access=slave1.foo.com,slave2.foo.com /home -rw=slave1.foo.com,slave2.foo.com, root=slave1.foo.com,slave2.foo.com
Again, the root option is listed for informational purposes and is not recommended unless necessary.