NFS – quick win

This is a very basic step-by-step guide to create a CentOS7 NFS server that shares a folder /nfsshare over 192.168.4.0/24 network. This share will be owned by apache and mountable on a CentOS web server.

Here the instructions how to create the server and how to setup the client.

NFS Server

Add this line in IPTABLES:

-A INPUT -s 192.168.4.0/24 -m comment --comment "NFS Network" -j ACCEPT

 

Run the following to create a share folder and setup NFS:

mkdir /nfsshare
yum install nfs-utils nfs-utils-lib -y
systemctl enable nfs-server
echo "/nfsshare 192.168.4.0/24(rw,sync,no_root_squash)" >> /etc/exports
sed -i 's/#Domain = local.domain.edu/Domain = nfsdomain.loc/' /etc/idmapd.conf
systemctl start rpcbind
systemctl start nfs-server

# Create apache user/group
# (NFS clients will read/write using this user so we want to have 
# the same set also on the server for an easier ownership management)
groupadd -g 48 apache
useradd -g 48 -u 48 apache

 

NFS Client

e.g. assuming that NFS server’s IP is 192.168.4.1

Add this line in IPTABLES:

-A INPUT -s 192.168.4.0/24 -m comment --comment "NFS Network" -j ACCEPT

Then, run this:

yum install nfs-utils rpcbind

sed -i 's/#Domain = local.domain.edu/Domain = nfsdomain.loc/' /etc/idmapd.conf
echo "192.168.4.1 NFS01" >> /etc/hosts
mount -t nfs4 -o noatime,proto=tcp,actimeo=3,hard,intr,acl,_netdev NFS01:/nfsshare
tail -1 /proc/mounts >> /etc/fstab

NOTE: we are hardly mapping the NFS server’s IP in /etc/hosts to make easier to recognise the mount (in case of multiple mounts).

If you are facing the issue where you mount /nfsshare and you see the owner of the files and folders showing as nobody:nobody, it could be related to rpcidmapd and DNS. To fix this, try to update /etc/hosts on the Client with <hostname>.nfsdomain.loc

# ============= #
# Ubuntu Notes  #
# ============= #

!! Same users on Server and Client - for the exported partition !!

SERVER
apt-get install nfs-kernel-server

vim /etc/exports
/var/www/vhosts		192.168.3.*(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)

service nfs-kernel-server restart
exportfs -a


CLIENT
apt-get install nfs-common
mount -t nfs4 192.168.3.1:/var/www/vhosts /var/www/vhosts/

!! CHECK the output of cat /proc/mounts and you can get the correct rsize/wsize. If the firewall/network can handle, keep this value as big as possible:

e.g.

noatime,proto=tcp,actimeo=3,hard,intr,acl,_netdev,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576

vim /etc/fstab
192.168.3.1:/var/www/vhosts   /var/www/vhosts nfs4    noatime,actimeo=3,hard,intr,acl,_netdev,rsize=32768,wsize=32768 0 0