NFS
The Network File System (NFS) is a
distributed filesystem that allows users to mount remote filesystems
as if they were local. From the Finder’s point of
view, an NFS-mounted filesystem appears as a disk, usually (but not
necessarily) appearing under the special
/Network folder.
NFS uses a client-server model, in which a server exports directories to be shared, and clients mount the directories to access the files in them. NFS eliminates the need to keep copies of files on several machines by letting the clients all share a single copy of a file on the server. NFS is an RPC-based application-level protocol.
Both mounting and serving filesystems through NFS involve setting up configuration information in NetInfo, and then running command-line programs or launching (or reloading) daemons. For more about NetInfo, see Chapter 12.
You must also have user and group IDs in agreement among all the
machines involved in an NFS connection. If your username and UID are
jmac and 501 on your machine,
then you should also have UID 501 on any machine
whose directories you have mounted. Discrepancies can lead to
confusion with filesystem permissions.
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