Mounting Network File Systems | Storage Management

Introduction

Mounting Network File Systems (NFS) allows you to share directories and files over a network. This enables different systems to access and use files as if they were on their local storage. In this tutorial, we will cover the steps required to mount NFS on a Linux system.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure you have the following:

A Linux system with root access.
NFS server IP address or hostname.
The directory on the NFS server you want to mount.
NFS client utilities installed on your Linux system.

Step 1: Install NFS Client Utilities

To interact with NFS, you need to have the NFS client utilities installed on your system. You can do this using your package manager.

# For Debian/Ubuntu-based systems

sudo apt update

sudo apt install nfs-common

# For RHEL/CentOS-based systems

sudo yum install nfs-utils

Step 2: Create a Mount Point

Create a directory where you want to mount the NFS share. This directory will act as the access point for the NFS share on your local system.

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs_share

Step 3: Mount the NFS Share

Use the mount command to mount the NFS share to the directory you created.

sudo mount -t nfs : /mnt/nfs_share

Example:

sudo mount -t nfs 192.168.1.100:/exported_directory /mnt/nfs_share

Step 4: Verify the Mount

To confirm that the NFS share is mounted, you can use the df -h command. This will display the filesystem's disk space usage, including the NFS mount.

df -h

Filesystem           Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1            20G  5.0G   15G  25% /
tmpfs                2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm
192.168.1.100:/exported_directory  50G  10G   40G  20% /mnt/nfs_share

Step 5: Automate NFS Mount at Boot

To automatically mount the NFS share at boot, you need to add an entry to the /etc/fstab file. Open the file with a text editor and add the following line:

: /mnt/nfs_share nfs defaults 0 0

Example:

192.168.1.100:/exported_directory /mnt/nfs_share nfs defaults 0 0

After adding the entry, you can either reboot your system or use the following command to mount all filesystems mentioned in /etc/fstab:

sudo mount -a

Unmounting the NFS Share

If you need to unmount the NFS share, you can use the umount command:

sudo umount /mnt/nfs_share

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues, here are a few common troubleshooting steps:

Ensure the NFS server is reachable by using the ping command.
Check the NFS server's export list using showmount -e .
Verify that the NFS service is running on the server.
Check the system logs for any error messages.

Conclusion

Mounting NFS shares allows you to efficiently share files across a network. By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you should be able to mount and use NFS shares on your Linux system. Always ensure that your network and file system configurations are secure to prevent unauthorized access.