How to Configure NFS Server in Redhat Linux

This tutorial explains how to configure NFS Server in Linux step by step with practical examples. Learn how to configure NFS Server and NFS Client, create NFS share, mount NFS share temporary and permanent, allow NFS traffic through IPTABLES firewall and configure SELinux Booleans for NFS in detail.

Network File System (NFS) protocol allow Linux client to mount remote file systems and interact with those file systems as they are mounted locally.

• NFS was developed by Sun Microsystems in 1980
• NFS stand for Network File System
• NFS is used to share files and printer between Linux / Unix systems
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports NFSv2, NFSv3, and NFSv4 clients.
• By default RHEL use NFSv4 if the server supports it.

NFSv1

NFSv1 was the development stage of NFS protocol. It was used only for in house experimental purpose. When a stable version of NFS was ready, Developers decided to release it as the new version of NFS known as NFSv2.

NFSv2

• NFSv2 supports only 32 bit.
• NFSv2 only allowed the first 2 GB of a file to be read
• NFSv2 operated only over UDP

NFSv3

• NFSv3 supports 64 bit file system.
• NFSv3 can handle files larger than 2 GB.
• NFSv3 supports asynchronous writes on the server. asynchronous writes improve write performance.
• NFSv3 supports additional file attributes in many replies, to avoid the need to re-fetch them.
• NFSv3 supports READDIRPLUS operation. READDIRPLUS operation get file handles and attributes along with file names when scanning a directory.
• NFSv3 supports TCP. Using TCP as a transport made NFS over a WAN more feasible.

NFSv4

• NFSv4 retains all NFSv3 advantages.
• NFSv4 supports ACLs.
• NFSv4 uses the virtual file system to present the server's export.
• NFSv4 supports Pseudo file system. Pseudo File System provide maximum flexibility. Exports Pathname on servers can be changed transparently to clients.
• NFSv4 have locking operations as the part of protocol which keep track of open files and delegations.
• NFSv4 works through firewalls and on the Internet.

RHCE Exam objectives cover in this article

• Provide network shares to specific clients
• Provide network shares suitable for group collaboration

Configure NFS Server in RHEL6

Our first task is to install the necessary RPM. Two RPM are required for NFS server

• nfs-utils
• rpcbind

nfs-utils

This is the main RPM which provide nfs service.

rpcbind

NFS depends on Remote Procedure Calls(RPC) service which is controlled by rpcbind service. In earlier version of RHEL portmap service was used to map RPC program numbers to IP address port number combinations. This service is now replaced by rpcbind to enable IPv6 support.

If you do not have above RPM installed, than first install them. You can use any method to install RPM.

"NFS file server" is the primary group associated with NFS. So if you have configured yum repository than following command will install the mandatory packages[nfs-utils and nfs4-acl-tools] from that group.

#yum groupinstall " NFS file server"

Or alternatively you can use

# yum install nfs* -y

If you do not have yum repository use RPM command to install these packages. Go in the folder which contain RPM (In installation disk of RHEL, Package folder contains all RPM ) and run following command.

#rpm -ivh nfs* --nodeps --force
#rpm -ivh rpcbind* --nodeps --force

Our second task is to verify that the NFS services are installed. This can be done form following command.

rpm –qa nfs-utils

Verify that rpcbind package is installed.

rpm –qa rpcbind

For this article I assume that you have both packages installed.

Following services are associated with NFS daemons. Each service have its script file stored in init.d directory.

You can start each script directly by following command

#/etc/init.d/[script name]

For example to start nfs service

#/etc/init.d/nfs

Or you can use service command to start / stop /restart the service

#service nfs start

nfs and rpcbind are the compulsory services for nfs daemons.

Make sure nfs and rpcbind scripts are active before you configure NFS server.

Start the services

Make sure that services remain on after reboot

Check the status to services it must be running

How to configure NFS client on RHEL6

Check necessary RPM

Install if you are missing them

Start the necessary services and Verify the status of services it must be running

Make sure service remain on after reboot

Check connectivity form server

How to create NFS Share

So far we have setup NFS Server and NFS client with basic configurations. Now create a NFS Share on NFS Server and mount it from NFS Client.

On Server system make a directory /nfs_share and create a test file in it

On Server /etc/exportfs defines what resources will be available for clients. /etc/exports file use following syntax to share resources

[mountpoint] [host][permissions/options]

Remember there is no space between the [host] field and the [permissions/options] field. If you include a space, you receive a syntax error.

Common Mount permission options

NFS Host Entries

/etc/exportfs supports conventional wildcards which provide flexibility when specifying hosts.

• you can use the hostname for hosts within your domain.
• you need fully qualified domain name for outside hosts.
• you can reference all the hosts within a specific domain.
• You can use the * for the host segment, followed by the domain name for the network, such as *.example.com for all the hosts in the example.com network.
• Instead of host name, You can also use single host's ip address.
• you can use IP network addresses with a CNDR format
• You can also use an NIS netgroup name to reference a collection of hosts. The NIS netgroup name is preceded by an @ sign.

For example following are the valid example for hosts entries

directory   host(options)
/nfs_share	 *(rw,sync)
/nfs_share	 *.example.com(rw,sync)
/nfs_share	 192.168.1.10(rw,sync)
/nfs_share	 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(rw,sync)
/nfs_share	 192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync)
/nfs_share	 @netgroup(rw,sync)

We will share it globally with read / write options. Open /etc/exports file

add following line and save the file

Restart the NFS service

showmount

showmount command with -e option will display shared NFS directories locally and remotely. To review the export list for a NFS server, add the name / IP address of NFS server. If this command doesn't work, communication may be blocked with a firewall.

During the exam you may face two common errors as the output of showmount -e command

on NfS server

clnt_create: RPC: Program not registered

on NFS client

clnt_create: RPC: Port mapper failure - Unable to receive: errno 113 (No route to host)

On server this is generated due to order of services. In exam always start /restart rpcbind service before nfs.

On client this is generated due to firewall configured on NFS server. On linuxclient system use showmount to list all NFS Share

clnt_create: RPC: Port mapper failure - Unable to receive: errno 113 (No route to host)

showmount -e command returns above error on NFS client if firewall is not properly configured on NFS Server.

Configure IPTABLES rules for NFS Server.

During the RHCE exam you may have a iptable firewall enabled system. You should know how to allow nfs through firewall.

NFS port range

In order to allow NFS through iptable firewall we need to open following ports

• TCP and UDP port 2049 for NFS.
• TCP and UDP port 111 (rpcbind/sunrpc).
• TCP and UDP port specified with MOUNTD_PORT="port"
• TCP and UDP port specified with STATD_PORT="port"
• TCP port specified with LOCKD_TCPPORT="port"
• UDP port specified with LOCKD_UDPPORT="port"

NFS requires rpcbind, which dynamically assigns ports for RPC services at startup time. Dynamic ports could not be protected by iptables as these ports might change on reboot and make changes obsolete.

So you need to configure NFS services to use fixed ports.

Open /etc/sysconfig/nfs

Uncomment following directives to use default port, Or change them with desired TCP / UDP unused ports and save the file.

# TCP port rpc.lockd should listen on.
LOCKD_TCPPORT=[port-number]
# UDP port rpc.lockd should listen on.
LOCKD_UDPPORT=[port-number]
# Port rpc.mountd should listen on.
MOUNTD_PORT=[port-number]
# Port rquotad should listen on.
RQUOTAD_PORT=[port-number]
# Port rpc.statd should listen on.
STATD_PORT=[port-number]
# Outgoing port statd should used. The default is port is random
STATD_OUTGOING_PORT=[port-number]

Here is the sample listing with default port number

LOCKD_TCPPORT=32803
LOCKD_UDPPORT=32769
MOUNTD_PORT=892
RQUOTAD_PORT=875
STATD_PORT=662
STATD_OUTGOING_PORT=2020

So far we have configured fix port for nfs server now let's configure firewall to allow nfs traffic.

Run setup command

Select firewall configuration

Select Customize [Make sure firewall option remain selected ]

Select NFS4

Select Forward and press enter

Select eth+ and press enter on close button

Select ok and press enter

Select Yes and press enter

Select Quit and press enter

Now open /etc/sysconfig/iptables file

Add following iptable rules

-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 32803 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 32769 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT  -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 892 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 892 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 875 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 875 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT  -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 662 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 662 -j ACCEPT

under the rule for port 2049 and save file

NFS and SELinux

SELinux is the integral part of RHEL and directories shared via NFS would not work without proper changes to SELinux.

Important SELinux Booleans for NFS

During the exam Make sure the SELinux booleans are compatible, specifically nfs_export_all_ro and nfs_export_all_rw are set to on

If nfs_export_all_ro and nfs_export_all_rw Booleans are set to off change the value

Verify that the Booleans have been changed:

Restart the iptables , rpcbind, and nfs service

Now try again to run showmount -e command on NFS client

Create a /nfs_tmp directory to mount NFS share locally

Mount /nfs_share to local /nfs_tmp directory

Perform read and write operations, You can read but write will be denied.

We shared with write permission still we are getting permission denied message because default Linux file permission always over ride NFS share permission. To fix it

On Server system change file permission

On client try again to write this time it will be permitted

Now we have full file permission on nfs_share directory open /etc/exportfs file

Change rw [Read, Write] share option to ro[Read only] and save the file

Restart the nfs service

Or use the exportfs command to manually export any new resources added to the /etc/exports file.

In real world I would recommended to use exportfs to manually export the directories rather than restart the service because while you restart the nfs service, you also disconnect your nfs clients as well.

On client remount the nfs_share

Try to perform write operation, This time you will get NFS share error message.

NFS Tools

During the exam following commands could be helpful for troubleshooting