[Techtalk] Which Network File System?

Rudy Zijlstra rudy at grumpydevil.homelinux.org
Thu Dec 6 22:26:32 UTC 2007


Kathryn Andersen wrote:
> Kathryn AndersenHi Karhryn and other worhies,
>
>
>   
I'll throw in my Euro0.02 :)
>
> On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Kathryn Andersen wrote:
>
>
>
>   
>> Worthy and knowledgable peoples,
>>

At home/home business running a mixed network with both linux and 
MSwindows machines (W2K, XP). Its a combination home/small business 
network. And several machines are used by different users at different 
times. In other words, not all machines are single user.
>>
>> nfs:
>> old and venerable, works everywhere, well-supported, but doesn't deal
>> well with disconnection, insecure, may or may not support extended
>> attributes (I got conflicting info on that)
>>
>> samba:
>> Oriented towards sharing with MS-Windows, advisable not to bother
>> if you're not dealing with MS-Windows.
>>
We are using both. For me, the big, big drawback of samba is that it 
presupposes one user per link. Some incapabilities of samba:
- 1 user per samba client. This means that if you have a linux client 
where the linux machine knows several users, you can only enable the 
mounts after the user logs in. Otherwise all users will use the same 
priviliges/authorisations
- only one user per connected server. Although you can login to each 
server with a different authorisation, its only 1 authorisation per 
server. This can be a hassle when you need temporary elevated access to 
a share, for example to a management share.

nfs:

nfsv3 can be used in conjuction with kerberos. resulting in if needed 
encrypted traffic.
nfs supports ACLs to the level that the underlying filesystem supports it
nfs is dependent on the privilege of the underlying filesystem, thus 
allowing for multiple users (you need to ensure your users have the same 
UIC/GID over the different systems though)

nfs will normally squash root access (unless explicitly allowed)

nfs is rather configurable on its behaviour for when servers 
reboot/crash/etc. I normally use hard,intr as options, which results in 
a prety good behaviour. Full list available on request...

disconnection problems are mostly a thing of the past (if correct 
options are used).

At the moment a lot of work is done to integrate IPv6 support into nfs.

This is for all versions of nfs.

>> sshfs: (FUSE filesystem over SSH)
>> Very easy to set up for a single user, no need for server setup,
>> secure, not good for global sharing, *may* be slow 

well, single user....

>>
>> afs/OpenAFS:
>> ancient and venerable, complicated to set up, many features
>> (also GenToo doesn't appear to have the current version)
>>
>> Coda:
>> modern, may not be stable, may not be well-supported, secure,
>> disconnectable (also, GenToo doesn't appear to have the current version)

no opinion on afs and coda. Never played with them, and never had reason 
to play with them.

>>
>> Worthy people, can you give me guidance? 

Do not know whether i am worthy, can be grumpy though.... :) 

So far my defense of nfs. :)

Cheers,

Rudy
>
>> Kathryn Andersen
>> -- 
>> _--_|\     | Kathryn Andersen    <http://www.katspace.com>
>> /      \    |
>> \_.--.*/    | GenFicCrit mailing list 
>> <http://www.katspace.com/gen_fic_crit/>
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>> ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
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