David Kitchen

This caused me a bit of a headache… mostly with nlockmgr, and as I know this caused me headache last time too (pages I’d bookmarked had all gone the way of a 404) here’s a quick guide to setting up an NFS server on a Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala server.

NFS SERVER

1. Install NFS

sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

2. Create a share

mkdir /files
sudo vim /etc/exports

Then add your share to that file:
/files  192.168.1.0/24(rw,no_root_squash,async,no_subtree_check)

Which gives full read/write permissions to the IP range 192.168.1.1 through 192.168.1.255 which is the private range I’m working on.

Save that and restart the service:
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart

And as we’ve changed /etc/exports… update that:
sudo exportfs -a

3. Make all of the ports static

Edit /etc/default/nfs-common:
sudo vim /etc/default/nfs-common

To update the STATDOPTS line thus:
STATDOPTS="--port 4000"

Save that and restart the service:
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-common restart

Edit /etc/default/nfs-kernel-server:
sudo vim /etc/default/nfs-kernel-server

To update the RPCMOUNTDOPTS:
RPCMOUNTDOPTS="--p 4002"

Save and restart:
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart

And this is the one that caught me out… nlockmgr, edit /etc/sysctl.conf:
sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf

And add the following two lines to the bottom of the file:
fs.nfs.nlm_tcpport=4001
fs.nfs.nlm_udpport=4001

Save and reboot the server:
sudo reboot

When the server comes up, do the following to see the changes:
rpcinfo -p

Which should give you something like this:
program vers proto   port
100000    2   tcp    111  portmapper
100000    2   udp    111  portmapper
100024    1   udp   4000  status
100024    1   tcp   4000  status
100021    1   udp   4001  nlockmgr
100021    3   udp   4001  nlockmgr
100021    4   udp   4001  nlockmgr
100021    1   tcp   4001  nlockmgr
100021    3   tcp   4001  nlockmgr
100021    4   tcp   4001  nlockmgr
100003    2   udp   2049  nfs
100003    3   udp   2049  nfs
100003    2   tcp   2049  nfs
100003    3   tcp   2049  nfs
100005    1   udp   4002  mountd
100005    1   tcp   4002  mountd
100005    2   udp   4002  mountd
100005    2   tcp   4002  mountd
100005    3   udp   4002  mountd
100005    3   tcp   4002  mountd

And you’re done… one NFS server with static ports serving to a private range of IPs.

NFS CLIENT

This bit is much simpler.

Install the software:
sudo apt-get install portmap nfs-common

Create the directory that will reflect the NFS share:
sudo mkdir /files

Mount the share onto the empty directory (replace the IP address with the IP or FQDN of your NFS server):
sudo mount 192.168.1.29:/files /files

You can then test this by creating a file via the share. If you get a permissions error go check the permissions on the NFS server, specifically the directory permissions for /files.

To automatically mount the directory at boot time we need to add an entry to fstab:
sudo vim /etc/fstab

Then add a line to the end of that file (again ensuring to insert the IP or FQDN for your NFS server):
192.168.1.29:/files /files nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

And before you reboot, just test that:
sudo mount /files

There… now you have an NFS client connected to your NFS server

Credits:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=249889
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=352486
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=434795