NFS or SMB?

[SoWat]

Getting along nicely with all the features in Linux...but.

I want to be able to mount window shares. I've managed to do this using LinNeighborhood (which uses SMB), but I'd like to do it with NFS.

I have (a legal!) copy of OmniNfs Server for Win2K, but I'm buggered if I can get it to work. I've installed Netware NFS before, so I thought I'd be ok <cough>.

It's got to be a permissions thing, though the instructions that come with the program are pretty vague. I've (nfs)shared the directories, and mapped the users as best I can (given the sparse manual), but I can't connect. I get an RPC timeout error. Searching the internet doesn't really reveal much either.

The NFS server shows the client as trying to mount, so the connectivity setup is ok. I think I'm falling down on the UID and GUID mapping. Would a unix group and passwd file work on Win2K?

I'd rather use NFS, as it's faster, and it replicates a project I may be undertaking soon. Should I forget it and use SMB?

 

[Testin da Cable]

hmmm, I have no idea at all how that OmniNFS server works...but if it shows your linux client attempting to connect then I guess it's working.
I believe that you'll have to connect as a user you've defined in the NFS server.
in your client fstab file:

user@server:/remote/mount/point    /local/mount/point   nfs    rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

should do it, good luck!


but...
seems to me that running NFS on windows is a bit counter-intuitive. getting at your shares with samba would be a lot less probs still, I never was one for the easy way...

 

[SoWat]

Ok, success!

Entered your line into fstab, with my details, and that enabled me to mount cleanly rather than multiple connects and disconnects until timeout.

I could list the exported directory, but had no permissions to write. It took me a while to figure this out, but I got there in the end. Apparently it's not possible to map the unix root user to the windows administrator (without manual editing of windows files anyway... a security thing apparently). This was a bit of a gotcha because, as far as I can see, only root can mount filesystems.

Sooo, I created a new user who was a member of the root group, and added him to the nfs server's group permissions file. This now allows me read and write in all exported directories. Phew

The scenario I have in mind for my project (my employer allows me time to 'play'), is to have a windows NT/2000 server with the NFS server installed. On one side there'd be a Unix/Linux system, and on the other a group of NT clients. The unix system would pass formatted files to a directory on the NT server, which would be picked up by one or more NT clients. The Unix system would be polling the exported directory to catch any changes in filesize (don't ask).

I'd rather use NFS as it's an industry standard.

Anyways....ta for the help, I'm off to play some more

 

[Testin da Cable]

hmm sounds like fun

 

[SoWat]

Hoh yus, a barrel of laffs

For anyone else contemplating sharing windows stuff to unix/linux, I'd strongly recommend LinNeighborhood. It's a smashing graphical tool for mounting Windows shares under *nix.

http://www.bnro.de/~schmidjo/ will give you all the gory details.