CSE 265:

System and Network Administration

● The Network File System
– NFS Introduction
– Server-side NFS
– Client-side NFS
– NFS Statistics with nfsstat
– Dedicated NFS File Servers
– Automatic Mounting

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 NFS: Network File System
● Allows systems to share filesystems with other
computers
– Clients mount network file systems just like local filesystems
● Originally designed to be transparent and stateless
● Consists of
– A mounting protocol
– Mount server
– File service daemons
– Diagnostic utilities

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 NFS
● Network File System
– Version 2: slow (obsolete)
● Originally released by Sun in 1985
– Version 3: faster (common)
– Version 4: security, locking (relatively new)
● Uses Sun's RPC (Remote Procedure Call) protocol
(documented in RFC 1050, 1988)
– Supports UDP or TCP for transport (v2,v3)
● File locking is worse under NFS v3 since servers
are stateless

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Magic cookies (NFS v2,v3)
– The server doesn't track which clients have
mounted filesystems (stateless)
– Instead, the server discloses a secret/magic cookie
that identifies the directory to the server on future
access
● Often the cookie is just the filesystem major and minor
device IDs, plus directory inode
– Unmounting and remounting the actual filesystem
on the server normally changes the cookie

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Security and NFS
– Not originally designed for security!
– Access to NFS volumes is determined via
/etc/exports
● lists hostnames or IP addresses that have access
● assumes clients will identify themselves correctly
– TCP wrappers/firewall can help protect service
– File-level access is managed according to UID, GID,
and file permissions
● Just as in local file systems

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 NFS Security Problems
– Users with given UID can access any file with that
UID (even if different user)
● Good reason for globally unique UID space!
– Root access on a client can access any file
– NFS typically uses option called “squashing root”
● Makes incoming requests for UID 0 look like they came
from some other user
● Account named nobody is utilized
– Option all_squash does the same for all users

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Server-side NFS
– Servers “export” a directory to make it available to others
– Servers run two daemons (v2,v3)
rpc.mountd to handle mount requests
●

● rpc.nfsd for actual file service

– Filesystems to be exported are in /etc/exports

# sample /etc/exports file
# sample /etc/exports file
/ master(rw) trusty(rw,no_root_squash)
/ master(rw) trusty(rw,no_root_squash)
/projects proj*.local.domain(rw)
/projects proj*.local.domain(rw)
/usr *.local.domain(ro) @trusted(rw)
/usr *.local.domain(ro) @trusted(rw)
/home/joe pc001(rw,all_squash,anonuid=150,anongid=100)
/home/joe pc001(rw,all_squash,anonuid=150,anongid=100)
/pub (ro,insecure,all_squash)
/pub (ro,insecure,all_squash)

– Can modify and view exports using exportfs

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Client-side NFS
– NFS filesystems are mounted much like local
filesystems using mount hostname:directory
– Before mounting, filesystem must be exported
● Check with showmount (v2,v3)

#showmount
#showmount -e
-e wume2
wume2
Export
Export list for wume2:
list for wume2:
/projects2 *.local.cse.lehigh.edu,davison
/projects2 *.local.cse.lehigh.edu,davison
/projects1
/projects1 *.local.cse.lehigh.edu,davison
*.local.cse.lehigh.edu,davison

– Use umount to unmount an NFS filesystem

● Can't be unmounted while in use (just like local disks)
● Use lsof to find processes with open files
Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Mounting NFS filesystems
● Use mount for temporary mounts
## mount
mount -o
-o rw,hard,intr,bg
rw,hard,intr,bg server:/home
server:/home /home
/home
● /etc/fstab contains mounts for boot time
wume1:/home
wume1:/home /home
/home nfs
nfs \\
intr,bg,rw
intr,bg,rw 11 11
wume1:/var/spool/mail
wume1:/var/spool/mail /var/spool/mail
/var/spool/mail nfs
nfs \\
intr,bg,rw
intr,bg,rw 11 11

● Common options:
– rw, ro, bg, hard, soft, intr, tcp, udp

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 NFS Statistics and Utilities
– nfsstat
Server rpc stats:
Server rpc stats:
calls badcalls badauth badclnt xdrcall
calls badcalls badauth badclnt xdrcall
40996991 0 0 0 0
40996991 0 0 0 0
Server nfs v3:
Server nfs v3:
null getattr setattr lookup access readlink
null getattr setattr lookup access readlink
2 0% 428484 1% 25913 0% 444794 1% 398283 0% 3174 0%
2 0% 428484 1% 25913 0% 444794 1% 398283 0% 3174 0%
read write create mkdir symlink mknod
read write create mkdir symlink mknod
10193400 24% 29048042 70% 69068 0% 695 0% 3110 0% 0 0%
10193400 24% 29048042 70% 69068 0% 695 0% 3110 0% 0 0%
remove rmdir rename link readdir readdirplus
remove rmdir rename link readdir readdirplus
5014 0% 81 0% 103716 0% 0 0% 38649 0% 1625 0%
5014 0% 81 0% 103716 0% 0 0% 38649 0% 1625 0%
fsstat fsinfo pathconf commit
fsstat fsinfo pathconf commit
853 0% 356 0% 0 0% 231730 0%
853 0% 356 0% 0 0% 231730 0%

– netstat
● General network statistics, may help debugging
– showmount -a
● Shows all systems believed to have mounted filesystems
Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Dedicated NFS File Servers
● Dedicated NFS appliances are available
● Network Appliance, EMC, HP, Oracle, etc.
– Features
● Provide Network Attached Storage (NAS)
● Optimized for file service
● Can scale to lots of storage and users
● Often provide service to both Unix and Windows clients
● More reliable
– simpler software, redundant hardware, RAID
● Easy to administer
● Often provide backup and checkpoint facilities
Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 Automatic Mounting
– Separate lines in /etc/fstab can be difficult in large
networks
● Maintaining /etc/fstab on more than a few dozen machines
is tedious
● Worse is when those machines mount from many hosts
– When an important host crashes, clients are crippled
● Having a copy of the partition mountable elsewhere would
be ideal
– An automounter mounts filesystems only when
needed, and can work with replicated systems for
redundancy

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 automount
– A background process that watches for requests for
files within a specified directory
● Uses autofs kernel-resident filesystem driver
● Then mounts the requested filesystem
– /etc/init.d/autofs script is configured via
/etc/auto.master
/misc
/misc /etc/auto.misc
/etc/auto.misc --timeout=300
--timeout=300
– Each mount point has separate map file (or script),
listing all valid subdirectories and how to get them

Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison
 automount example (misc)
# This is an automounter map and it has the following format
# This is an automounter map and it has the following format
# key [ -mount-options-separated-by-comma ] location
# key [ -mount-options-separated-by-comma ] location
# Details may be found in the autofs(5) manpage
# Details may be found in the autofs(5) manpage
cd -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev :/dev/cdrom
cd -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev :/dev/cdrom
brian-sun-windows -fstype=smbfs,rw,noexec,username=brian,pass\
brian-sun-windows -fstype=smbfs,rw,noexec,username=brian,pass\
word=XYZ,uid=501,gid=501 ://gutenberg/brian
word=XYZ,uid=501,gid=501 ://gutenberg/brian
# the following entries are samples to pique your imagination
# the following entries are samples to pique your imagination
#linux -ro,soft,intr ftp.example.org:/pub/linux
#linux -ro,soft,intr ftp.example.org:/pub/linux
#boot -fstype=ext2 :/dev/hda1
#boot -fstype=ext2 :/dev/hda1
#floppy -fstype=auto :/dev/fd0
#floppy -fstype=auto :/dev/fd0
% mount
% mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
morning:/raid on /net/morning/raid type nfs
morning:/raid on /net/morning/raid type nfs
(rw,nosuid,nodev,hard,intr,addr=128.180.120.43)
(rw,nosuid,nodev,hard,intr,addr=128.180.120.43)
Spring 2016 CSE 265: System and Network Administration ©2004-2016 Brian D. Davison