re-exporting an NFS filesystem

[Chris Snook]

Chris Kottaridis wrote:
> Is it possible to re-export an NFS file system ?
> 
> So, if I am a client with an NFS mount point, can I export that mount 
> point and then have some other host nfs mount my mount point ?
> 
> I was pretty sure the answer is no, but I don't know why not. Is there 
> some RFC somewhere that indicates that this is not part of NFS design to 
> do that ?

Re-exporting a filesystem introduces all sorts of nasty race conditions, 
and handling correctly those which could hypothetically be addressed 
with the current protocol would require a hideous tangled mass of 
special cases, while still leaving some wide open.  This is why the 
kernel doesn't even attempt to do this.

NFSv4 has the notion of delegations, which may or may not do what you 
want.  Like all things NFSv4-related, it's more complicated than NFSv3, 
but worth it if you really want to get it right.

-- Chris