Creating an NFS export

Network File System, or NFS, is file sharing technology that is very common in Unix/Linux environments. Initially used for sharing files similar to CIFS, the use of NFS has grown to include high-performance environments such as Oracle databases and virtualization. Features such as connection resiliency and the ability to use either UDP or TCP make NFS versatile and powerful.

For Unix/Linux environments, basic share access was traditionally based on IP addressing; file level security was then used to further restrict access. Microsoft has expanded share security in NFS to include Kerberos authentication. This allows clients to be fully authenticated and access granted or restricted by using Active Directory.

Note

NFS exports in Windows can still utilize IP-based security. This is useful when working in heterogeneous environments with non-Windows systems.

Getting ready

In this recipe, we will be working in a simple Active Directory environment for authentication. Our file...