Summary

Red Hat Linux includes two prominent file-sharing services: NFS for sharing files with other UNIX systems (or PCs with NFS client software) and Samba for file sharing and print sharing with Windows systems. This chapter described both NFS and Samba.

By reading this chapter, you learned:

Network File System (NFS) enables you to mount a file system from a remote computer on your local system. Red Hat Linux includes everything you need to set up your system as a NFS server.
To export a file system, add that file system in the /etc/exports file, and type /usr/sbin/exportfs -a to export the file systems. You also have to start the NFS servers by typing the command service nfs start. After that, other NFS client systems on the network can mount the exported file systems by using the mount command.
For PC networks that use Windows networking, you can configure a Red Hat Linux PC as a Windows server: all you have to do is use the Samba software package from the companion CD-ROMs. This chapter shows you how to install and use Samba.
Samba configuration is somewhat complex-you configure using settings in the text file /etc/samba/smb.conf.
You can access Windows servers and their resources from a Samba server with the smbclient program.