NFS server

From ComputingPlugs

The kernel must have NFS server support compiled if you want to set up a NFS server. That support was not enabled in the feroceon, orion or mainline kernel. So you'll have to compile your own kernel to run an NFS server on the Sheeva Plug. It doesn't matter which kernel you use, all three have NFS support.

If you try to start NFS without a custom kernel, you'll see the follow message during boot up on the serial console:

[ OK ] * Starting NFS common utilities                                          
       * Not starting NFS kernel daemon: no support in current kernel.          

or if you see this on the client when you try to mount a NFS directory on the server

mount.nfs: mount to NFS server '192.168.1.200:/export' failed: RPC Error: Program not registered

To enable NFS kernel support, go to the kernel source tree directory and do a make menuconfig, then select

File systems -> Network File Systems

highlight

NFS server support

and change the selection to a '<*>', then highlight

NFS server support for NFS version 3

and change that to a '<*>' also. The screen show look like this:

--- Network File Systems                                          
<*>   NFS client support                                             
[*]     NFS client support for NFS version 3                        
[ ]       NFS client support for the NFSv3 ACL protocol extension
[ ]     NFS client support for NFS version 4 (EXPERIMENTAL)
[*]     Root file system on NFS                            
<*>   NFS server support                                   
[*]     NFS server support for NFS version 3               
[ ]       NFS server support for the NFSv3 ACL protocol extension
[ ]     NFS server support for NFS version 4 (EXPERIMENTAL)       
< >   Secure RPC: Kerberos V mechanism (EXPERIMENTAL)            
< >   Secure RPC: SPKM3 mechanism (EXPERIMENTAL)                 
< >   SMB file system support (OBSOLETE, please use CIFS)        
< >   CIFS support (advanced network filesystem, SMBFS successor)
< >   NCP file system support (to mount NetWare volumes)         
< >   Coda file system support (advanced network fs)             
< >   Andrew File System support (AFS) (EXPERIMENTAL)            

exit menuconfig, save your settings and build the kernel.

To complete the installation, you'll also need to install the nfs-server package.

apt-get install nfs-kernel-server

You have the option of installing nfs-user-server too. If you do, you won't need to compile a custom kernel because nfs-user-server doesn't need kernel support. However, nfs-user-server is slower and supposedly more buggy than the kernel version. I have no experience with that because I have never used the user server.

Comments:

Kenny Says: May 18 2009 4:08 pm Please keep comments clean and constructive. Inappropriate comments will be removed. Thank you. chandra shekhar Says: Jul 12 2009 8:24 pm it is good. Duffy Says: Jun 22 2010 8:14 am Using the mainline kernel from here: http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva/ NFS Kernel Server support is actually enabled as module ("nfsd"). However it seems there is a bug somewhere causing the startup script to fail with the error message mentionned at the top of this page. By disabling (commenting out the lines) the kernel support check in the /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server script, the NFS server can be started successfully. It is quite interesting to know as it avoids the need to recompile the kernel.

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