Two versions of NFS are currently in use. NFS version 2, which has been
around for several years, is widely supported by various operating
systems. NFS version 3 has several more features, including a variable
file handle size and better error reporting. Red Hat Linux supports both NFSv2 and
NFSv3, and uses NFSv3 by default when connecting with a server which
supports it.
This chapter will focus on NFS version 2, though many of the concepts
discussed also apply to version 3. Additionally, only fundamental NFS
concepts and supplemental information will be provided. For specific
instructions regarding the configuration and operation of NFS on client or
server machines, see the Official Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.
Linux uses a combination of kernel-level support and continuously
running daemon processes to provide NFS file sharing, and NFS support
must be enabled in the Linux kernel to function. NFS uses
Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) to route requests
between clients and servers, meaning that the portmap
service must be enabled and active at the proper runlevels for NFS
communication to occur. Working with portmap, various
other processes ensure that a particular NFS connection is allowed and
may proceed without error:
rpc.mountd — The running process that
receives the mount request from an NFS client and checks to see if
it matches with a currently exported filesystem.
rpc.nfsd — The process that implements the
user-level part of the NFS service. It works with the Linux kernel
to meet the dynamic demands of NFS clients, such as providing
additional server threads for NFS clients to utilize.
rpc.lockd — A daemon that is not necessary
with modern kernels. NFS file locking is now done by the kernel. It
is included with the nfs-utils package for
users utilizing older kernels that do not include this functionality
by default.
rpc.statd — Implements the
Network Status Monitor (NSM) RPC
protocol. This provides reboot notification when an NFS server is
restarted without being gracefully brought down.
rpc.rquotad — An RPC server that provides
user quota information for remote users.
Not all of these programs are required for NFS service. The only
services that must be enabled are rpc.mountd,
rpc.nfsd, and portmap. The other
daemons provide additional functionality, based on the particular
requirements of your server environment.
NFS version 2 uses the User Datagram Protocol
(UDP) to provide a stateless network connection between the
client and server. (NFS version 3 can use UDP or TCP running over an
IP.) The stateless UDP connection minimizes network traffic, as the NFS
server sends the client a cookie after the client is authorized to
access the shared volume. This cookie, or random value that is stored on
the server's side, is passed with any RPC requests from the client to
the server. The NFS server can be restarted without affecting the
clients and the cookie remains intact.
Using NFS, authentication only occurs when the client is attempting to
mount to a remote filesystem. The NFS server uses the
/etc/hosts.allow and
/etc/hosts.deny files to determine if a particular
host should be specifically permitted or prevented access via NFS. Then,
the NFS server refers to the /etc/exports file to
uncover that host's privileges for the various mounts available. After
granting access, any file and directory operations are sent to the
server using remote procedure calls.
 | Warning |
|---|
| | NFS mount privileges are granted specifically to a host, not a
user. If you grant a host access to a particular part of your hard
drive with NFS, users of that machine will have access to your shared
data.
When configuring the /etc/exports file, be
extremely careful when sharing directories with read-write permissions
(rw) to a remote host. Users of remote systems
mounting your export will be able to modify data in the exported
filesystem.
|
NFS relies upon remote procedure calls (RPC) to function.
portmap is required to map RPC requests to the
correct services. RPC processes notify portmap when
they start, revealing the port number they are monitoring and the RPC
program numbers they expect to serve. The client system then contacts
portmap on the server with a particular RPC program
number. portmap then redirects the client to the
proper port number to communicate with its intended service.
Because RPC-based services rely on portmap to make
all connections with incoming client requests,
portmap must be available before any of these
services start. If, for some reason, the portmap
service unexpectedly quits, restart portmap and any
services running when it was started.
The portmap service can be used with the host
access files (/etc/hosts.allow and
/etc/hosts.deny) to control which remote systems
are permitted to use RPC-based services on your machine. See Chapter 9 for more information. Access control rules
for portmap will affect all RPC-based
services. Alternatively, you can specify each of the NFS RPC daemons
to be affected by a particular access control rule. The man pages for
rpc.mountd and rpc.statd contain
information regarding the precise syntax of these rules.
As portmap provides the coordination between RPC
services and the port numbers utilized to communicate with them, it
is useful to be able to get a picture of the current RPC services
using portmap when troubleshooting. The
rpcinfo command shows each RPC-based service with
its port number, RPC program number, version, and IP protocol type
(TCP or UDP).
To make sure the proper NFS RPC-based services are enabled for
portmap, rpcinfo can be
useful:
[root@bleach /]# rpcinfo -p some.machine.com
program vers proto port
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100024 1 udp 1024 status
100024 1 tcp 1024 status
100011 1 udp 819 rquotad
100011 2 udp 819 rquotad
100005 1 udp 1027 mountd
100005 1 tcp 1106 mountd
100005 2 udp 1027 mountd
100005 2 tcp 1106 mountd
100005 3 udp 1027 mountd
100005 3 tcp 1106 mountd
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100021 1 udp 1028 nlockmgr
100021 3 udp 1028 nlockmgr
100021 4 udp 1028 nlockmgr
[root@bleach /]# |
The -p option probes the portmapper on the
specified host, or defaults to localhost if no specific host
is listed. Other options are available from the
rpcinfo man page.
From the output above, various NFS services can be seen running. If
one of the NFS services does not start up correctly,
portmap will be unable to map RPC requests from
clients for that service to the correct port. In many cases,
restarting NFS as root (service nfs restart) will
cause those service to correctly register with
portmap and begin working.
