TCP/IP Network Administration, 3rd Edition

Chapter 9. Local Network Services

Now our attention turns to configuring local network servers. As with name service, these servers are not strictly required for the network to operate, but they provide services that are central to the network’s purpose.

There are many network services—many more than can be covered in this chapter. Here we concentrate on servers that provide essential services for local clients. The services covered in this chapter are:

• The Network File System (NFS)

• The Line Printer Daemon (LPD) and the Line Printer (LP) service

• Windows file and print services (Samba)

• The Network Information Service (NIS)

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

• The Post Office Protocol (POP)

• Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)

All of these software packages are designed to provide service to systems within your organization and are not intended to service outsiders. Essential services that are as important to external users as they are to in-house users, such as email, web service, and name service, are covered in separate chapters.

We begin our discussion of local network services with NFS, which is the server that provides file sharing on Unix networks.

The Network File System

The Network File System (NFS) allows directories and files to be shared across a network. It was originally developed by Sun Microsystems but is now supported by virtually all Unix and many non-Unix operating systems. Through NFS, users and programs can access files located on remote systems as if they were ...