Confused about NFS

[Christian Nolte]

Arthur,

Arthur Pemberton schrieb:
> I am a bit confused about NFS in fedora/centos:
> 
> system-config-securitylevel has a checkbox option for NFS4 which does
> little in the way of opening up firewall access to NFS. checking the
> nfs-utils package, I see no mention of NFS4, so I'm left to assume
> it's not NFS4 on the system.

If you are using F7 you should have /sbin/mount.nfs4 which is used by 
mount if you specify -t nfs4 (note that you have to specify nfs4 
explicitly).

> /etc/sysconfig/nfs is very useful for configuring NFS for access
> through the firewall, but there is no sample version of the file.

The default firewall settings are only used for NFS4 and I suppose your 
/etc/exports file is in the "old" NFS format. NFS4 is using a slightly 
other syntax. Please have a look at this howto-page:

http://www.citi.umich.edu/projects/nfsv4/linux/

You will also find useful information in 'man 5 exports'. Make sure 
however that you use english as your locale (export LANG=C) before 
viewing this manpage. I noticed that the german localization of this 
manpage is outdated so this could apply to other localizations too.

> What's the purpose of the NFS4 checkbox in securitylevel, and why is
> NFS access so complicated to setup?

Using the new format of /etc/exports and 'checking the checkbox' should 
work out of the box.

Best regards!
Christian