Directories can be shared across the network using NFS on Solaris 8. I used the following to mount a directory from a remote system (named servermachine in the listings below) on a local system (clientmachine).
On the Server (Host)
The /etc/exports file is not used. On Solaris 8 it is the /etc/dfs/dfstab which should be used.
- vi /etc/dfs/dfstab and add an entry such as:
share -F nfs -o rw=clientmachine.qub.ac.uk -d “Shared Files” /export/clientmachine
- Start the NFS server with:
/etc/init.d/nfs.server start
- Re-read the shares listed in /etc/dfs/dfstab:
shareall
- Show the mounts
showmount -e
On the Client
- /etc/init.d/nfs.client start (not sure if this is required)
- /etc/init.d/nfs.server start (not sure if this is required)
- mount -F nfs servermachine:/export/clientmachine /home/jonny/mounts/servermachine
Errors encountered and possible solutions:
bash-2.03# mount -F nfs smithers:/export/servername1 /home/username/backups
nfs mount: smithers:/export/servername1: Permission denied
This error occured because I hadn’t listed the FQDN in /etc/dfs/dfstab on the server i.e.
share -F nfs -o rw=clientmachine -d “Shared Files” /export/clientmachine
should have been:
share -F nfs -o rw=clientmachine.domain.tld.uk -d “Shared Files” /export/clientmachine
bash-2.03# mount -F nfs servername2:/export/servername1 /home/username/backups
nfs mount: servername2: : RPC: Program not registered
nfs mount: retrying: /home/username/backups
This error occured (I assume) because the NFS server had not been started on the server machine. This was resolved by explicitly running the server process. This is unlikely to occur as when Solaris boots it checks /etc/dfs/dfstab and if it finds anythingit starts the NFS daemon. In our case here however the start up script had been disabled from the rc3.d directory. The problem was resolved by running: /etc/init.d/nfs.server start
