Dear Sergei,
Second point is probably easier to do. An alternative to NFS is sshfs. The
advantage is that it uses SSH which is installed by default and configured the
same way. If you generate key pairs you can use ssh or sshfs without a password.
Check this page below;
http://www.howtoforge.com/mounting-remote-directories-with-sshfs-on-ubuntu-11.10
Typically LDAP is being used for centralised authentication but NIS is
probably
just as good. Page below is about the client setup.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LDAPClientAuthentication
Both of the above are more likely to survive upgrades.
Adam
