NFS Windows7

From NMTWiki

Contents 1 Connecting to PCH-A110 NFS Server with native Windows 7 NFS client 1.1 Reason For Article 1.2 Prerequisites 1.3 Install W7 Client 1.4 Install NFSAXE Client Map and Disconnect 1.5 Now Native W7 Client will work 1.6 Bad News - Does not Survive reboot of PCH 1.7 Why Not just Buy/Use NFSAXE Client? 2 Any NFS Guru's Out There?

Connecting to PCH-A110 NFS Server with native Windows 7 NFS client

Reason For Article

I had in the past tried to get this to work, asked for help on forum - response was lacking, dropped it had no real use for it but it should of worked.
Got PM from zytham asking about my old forum post

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=32733

This reignited my natural curiosity on why it never worked in the first place. Finally got it working with this really bad workaround! Makes sense to document for the next guy/gal having same curiosity or desire to use NFS with their windows 7 machine.

Maybe someone with better NFS experience can find a correct solution.

Prerequisites

A) NMT Applications must be installed for this to work. NFS Server must be started.
B) Your PCH must be on your network, you should be able to access it already via SMB or FTP, ping it, etc.
C) Your flavor of W7 must support native nfs client (Ultimate, Enterprise, ?)
D) Eval NFSAXE client - can get here http://labf.com/download/nfsaxe.html

Install W7 Client

Control Panel, Turn Windows Features On or Off - Services for NFS
Click both Admin Tools and Client for NFS - Admin tools will allow you to adjust for tcp, udp, etc.

Click OK, wait for it to finish - should not have to reboot. If worked as it should we should be done, browse the exports with showmount, mount and be done with it. Problem is other than showmount can not mount the export..

Reboot maybe needed after install - nope still don't work, tried everything could think of -o anon, -u:nmt -p:1234 -- just wont freaking work, but linux mounts it fine and can mount other linux exports just fine, etc. So here is workaround that I can duplicate and works.

Install NFSAXE Client Map and Disconnect

Download, run, click custom install and select the nfsclient (NFSCI2K)

Reboot - after restart launch the client and browse your network, map your pch export to drive letter

Then disconnect it - its no longer needed. And client is slow as shit will show later.

net use e: /d

Or whatever drive letter you mapped to.

Now Native W7 Client will work

Now just mount it using your pchname (mine was renamed to just pch vs pch-a110 or IPaddress)

You can view that details of the NFS mount with the mount command and not other options, and net use will show you that is a NFS connection as well

All is good in the world -- From testing I did not find that NFS was really any faster than SMB connection.. Maybe a tiny little bit? Have not done enough testing to know for sure.. But it sure is NOT as fast as FTP - I see about 7MBps using FTP and only about 3-3.5 with SMB.

If your wondering about that Uid and Gid of -2, this common when root_squash is used in exports, I tried no_root_squash in the exports, tried setting windows to use Uid and Gid of nmt account, 1001 which is in exports per article I found here http://blog.cuongnv.com/2009/11/windows-7-client-for-nfs-and-user-name.html just nothing works... Until I stumbled across it working after playing with other client.

cat /etc/exports
/share 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(rw,sync,root_squash,anonuid=1001,anongid=1001)

Bad News - Does not Survive reboot of PCH

Ok, I reboot my test box multiple times and could always just connect back in.. But as you will see below, if I rebooted the pch, I could no longer mount with the native client, until I have again mapped with the nfsaxe client.

Works! Reboot PCH, Broke! Map with nfsaxe client, disconnect and now native client works again

Why Not just Buy/Use NFSAXE Client?

Well off the bat from my testing, its SLOW AS DIRT!! Second already have a NFS client that should work. But luckily the eval is FREE and does not expire, etc. But hey if you feel bad for using it in this fashion, then by all means buy it. Maybe their are some tweaks to make it faster?

Here is test copy of small little close to 100MB file

Not even 200KB.. Now on the other hand the native client was ok -- I had done a robcopy earlier of a 590MB file and got like 3.7MBps

It was ramping up in speed and wanted to catch it.. Do your own testing and let us know if any real difference between NFS and SMB.

Any NFS Guru's Out There?

Like I said this is a REALLY BAD Workaround - I don't suggest anyone actually use this in their environment. Just wanted to document how I got it to work, and its repeatable. But clearly something is not right, it should just work how it does in Linux. I would have to say its a bug in W7 nfs client since no problems from linux to the pch. And yes same thing happens with SP1 before anyone asks.

I personally have no use of NFS to my pch, SMB works fine for small tiny files, and so far has been flawless in watching movies off my server, etc. And FTP speeds are OK for the limitations of pch horsepower, etc. But hey NFS is there - you would hope it would work in Windows as well, and now with this batshit crazy workaround it does ;)