On Monday 13 Oct 2003 10:24 pm, Ronald J. Hall wrote:
> On Monday 13 October 2003 05:14 pm, Derek Jennings wrote:
> > I could tell you how to get NFS working, but I would have to stretch my
> > memory to do it and NFS sucks so bad I will tell you a better way.
>
> Derek, I know you have a lot more exp. at this stuff than I do, but why
> don't you like NFS? I'm using it here on my 3 comp LAN and its rock solid
> and fast.
>
> I understand that there are some issues if you need a very secure setup,
> but for a simple "at home" LAN like mine, I don't understand why it
> wouldn't be a recommended option.
>
> Thanks.

IMO NFS sucks for a number of reasons such as.

1/ Newbies have trouble setting it up. I have lost count of the number of 
times I have gone over it on this list (try searching the archives for 'NFS & 
jennings')
Since Mandrake 9.0 Mandrake Control Centre has had a nice GUI for setting up 
NFS clients. But there is still no GUI for setting up the server.

2/ It is chronically insecure. It depends on the host believing a client when 
they identify who they are (there is no password exchange). NFS should 
therefore never be used on any Lan segment attached to the internet. By 
contrast kio_fish is as secure as your ssh server. I have posted often on how 
to use privacy keys with ssh that makes it very secure indeed and suitable 
for using over the internet.

3/ The user account management sucks. You either need an Ldap server to manage 
users, (something I have no experience with), or else you must ensure that 
the usernames and User/Group ID numbers (UID/GID) on the different machines 
are identical. If not then the permissions on the files shared with NFS is 
all screwed up.

4/ NFS has a habit of hanging the system. If you switch off one machine 
without unmounting the NFS shares, then the other machine will hang when it 
is shut down. In Mandrake 8.1 it would hang forever. From Mandrake 8.2 
onwards it hangs for 5 minutes. (Forever in many peoples mind)

derek

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