Managing NFS and NIS, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10. PC/NFS Clients

PC/NFS refers to an implementation of the NFS protocol for IBM-compatible personal computers running the Windows or NT operating systems. Originally, NFS implementations for the IBM-compatible PC were confined to the client-side of NFS. Today, most vendors of PC/NFS offer both a client and server, though they are often packaged and sold separately. This chapter is confined to PC/NFS clients, and where it uses the term “PC/NFS” the term “PC/NFS client” is meant.

Using PC/NFS, PC machines can mount NFS filesystems as logical disks and use them as large virtual disks. Note that a client-only implementation does not limit the direction or types of file transfer operations that are possible within PC/NFS. It simply means that the PC is always the active entity in the Windows-NFS server relationship; the user must mount an NFS filesystem on the PC and then copy files between it and the local disk. In this chapter, we’ll look at why you would want to use PC/NFS, alternatives to PC/NFS, setting up PC/NFS, and PC/NFS usage issues.

PC/NFS today

The first NFS client for Microsoft DOS or Windows operating systems was developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s and was called “PC/NFS.” The PC/NFS brand name has become a generic term to refer to any product that provides an NFS client feature on Microsoft operating systems. Today, Sun Microsystems has abandoned the PC/NFS business, leaving a fairly competitive field of several vendors of commercial PC/NFS products. ...