Computer Science


EXPORTS(5)                                             EXPORTS(5)

NAME
       exports - NFS file systems being exported

SYNOPSIS
       /etc/exports

DESCRIPTION
       The  file  /etc/exports  serves as the access control list
       for file systems which may be exported to NFS clients.  It
       it  used  by  both the NFS mount daemon, mountd(8) and the
       NFS file server daemon nfsd(8).

       The file format is similar  to  the  SunOS  exports  file,
       except  that  several  additional  options  are permitted.
       Each line contains a mount point and a list of machine  or
       netgroup  names  allowed  to mount the file system at that
       point.  An optional parenthesized list of mount parameters
       may  follow  each  machine name.  Blank lines are ignored,
       and a # introduces a comment  to  the  end  of  the  line.
       Entries  may  be  continued  across newlines using a back-
       slash.

   Machine Name Formats
       NFS clients may be specified in a number of ways:

       single host
              This is the most common format. You may  specify  a
              host  either  by an abbreviated name recognizued be
              the resolver, the fully qualified domain  name,  or
              an IP address.

       netgroups
              NIS  netgroups  may  be  given as @group.  Only the
              host part of all netgroup members is extracted  and
              added to the access list. Empty host parts or those
              containing a single dash (-) are ignored.

       wildcards
              Machine names may contain the wildcard characters *
              and  ?.   This can be used to make the exports file
              more compact; for  instance,  *.cs.foo.edu  matches
              all  hosts in the domain cs.foo.edu. However, these
              wildcard characters do not  match  the  dots  in  a
              domain  name, so the above pattern does not include
              hosts such as a.b.cs.foo.edu.

       IP networks
              You can also export directories to all hosts on  an
              IP  (sub-)  network simultaneously. This is done by
              specifying  an  IP  address  and  netmask  pair  as
              address/netmask.

       =public
              This  is a special ``hostname'' that identifies the
              given directory name as the public  root  directory
              (see the section on WebNFS in nfsd(8) for a discus-
              sion of WebNFS and the public  root  handle).  When
              using  this  convention,  =public  must be the only
              entry on this line, and must have no export options
              associated  with  it. Note that this does not actu-
              ally export the named directory; you still have  to
              set the exports options in a separate entry.

       The  public  root  path  can also be specified by invoking
       nfsd with the --public-root  option.  Multiple  specifica-
       tions of a public root will be ignored.

   General Options
       mountd and nfsd understand the following export options:

       secure This  option requires that requests originate on an
              internet port  less  than  IPPORT_RESERVED  (1024).
              This option is on by default. To turn it off, spec-
              ify insecure.

       ro     Allow only read-only requests on this  NFS  volume.
              The  default  is  to  allow write requests as well,
              which can also be made explicit  by  using  the  rw
              option.

       noaccess
              This  makes everything below the directory inacces-
              sible for the named client.  This  is  useful  when
              you  want  to  export  a  directory  hierarchy to a
              client, but  exclude  certain  subdirectories.  The
              client's  view of a directory flagged with noaccess
              is  very  limited;  it  is  allowed  to  read   its
              attributes, and lookup `.' and `..'. These are also
              the only entries returned by a readdir.

       link_relative
              Convert absolute symbolic  links  (where  the  link
              contents start with a slash) into relative links by
              prepending the necessary number  of  ../'s  to  get
              from  the directory containing the link to the root
              on the server.  This has subtle, perhaps  question-
              able,  semantics  when  the  file  hierarchy is not
              mounted at its root.

       link_absolute
              Leave all symbolic link as they are.  This  is  the
              default operation.

   User ID Mapping
       nfsd  bases  its  access  control  to  files on the server
       machine on the uid  and  gid  provided  in  each  NFS  RPC
       request.  The  normal behavior a user would expect is that
       she can access her files on the server just as  she  would
       on  a normal file system. This requires that the same uids
       and gids are used on the client and  the  server  machine.
       This is not always true, nor is it always desirable.

       Very  often,  it  is not desirable that the root user on a
       client machine is also  treated  as  root  when  accessing
       files  on  the  NFS server. To this end, uid 0 is normally
       mapped to a  different  id:  the  so-called  anonymous  or
       nobody  uid.  This mode of operation (called `root squash-
       ing')  is  the  default,  and  can  be  turned  off   with
       no_root_squash.

       By default, nfsd tries to obtain the anonymous uid and gid
       by looking up user nobody in the password file at  startup
       time.  If it isn't found, a uid and gid of -2 (i.e. 65534)
       is used. These  values  can  also  be  overridden  by  the
       anonuid and anongid options.

       In  addition to this, nfsd lets you specify arbitrary uids
       and gids that should be mapped to  user  nobody  as  well.
       Finally,  you  can  map all user requests to the anonymous
       uid by specifying the all_squash option.

       For the benefit of installations where uids differ between
       different  machines,  nfsd  provides  several mechanism to
       dynamically map server uids to client uids and vice versa:
       static  mapping  files, NIS-based mapping, and ugidd-based
       mapping.

       ugidd-based mapping is enabled with the map_daemon option,
       and uses the UGID RPC protocol. For this to work, you have
       to run the ugidd(8) mapping daemon on the client host.  It
       is  the least secure of the three methods, because by run-
       ning ugidd, everybody can query the client host for a list
       of valid user names. You can protect yourself by restrict-
       ing access to ugidd to valid hosts only. This can be  done
       by  entering  the list of valid hosts into the hosts.allow
       or hosts.deny file. The service  name  is  ugidd.   For  a
       description    of   the   file's   syntax,   please   read
       hosts_access(5).

       Static mapping is enabled by using the map_static  option,
       which  takes a file name as an argument that describes the
       mapping.   NIS-based  mapping  queries  the  client's  NIS
       server  to  obtain  a mapping from user and group names on
       the server host to user and group names on the client.

       Here's the complete list of mapping options:

       root_squash
              Map  requests  from  uid/gid  0  to  the  anonymous
              uid/gid. Note that this does not apply to any other
              uids that might be equally sensitive, such as  user
              bin.

       no_root_squash
              Turn off root squashing. This option is mainly use-
              ful for diskless clients.

       squash_uids and squash_gids
              This option specifies a list of uids or  gids  that
              should  be  subject  to  anonymous mapping. A valid
              list of ids looks like this:

              squash_uids=0-15,20,25-50

              Usually, your squash lists will look a lot simpler.

       all_squash
              Map all uids and gids to the anonymous user. Useful
              for NFS-exported public FTP directories, news spool
              directories,    etc.   The   opposite   option   is
              no_all_squash, which is the default setting.

       map_daemon
              This option turns on dynamic uid/gid mapping.  Each
              uid  in  an  NFS  request will be translated to the
              equivalent server uid, and each uid in an NFS reply
              will  be  mapped  the  other way round. This option
              requires that rpc.ugidd(8) runs on the client host.
              The  default  setting is map_identity, which leaves
              all uids untouched. The normal squash options apply
              regardless  of whether dynamic mapping is requested
              or not.

       map_static
              This option enables static  mapping.  It  specifies
              the  name  of  the  file that describes the uid/gid
              mapping, e.g.

              map_static=/etc/nfs/foobar.map

              The file's format looks like this

              # Mapping for client foobar:
              #    remote     local
              uid  0-99       -       # squash these
              uid  100-500    1000    # map 100-500 to 1000-1500
              gid  0-49       -       # squash these
              gid  50-100     700     # map 50-100 to 700-750

       map_nis
              This option enables NIS-based uid/gid mapping.  For
              instance, when the server encounters the uid 123 on
              the server, it will obtain the login  name  associ-
              ated  with  it,  and  contact  the NFS client's NIS
              server to obtain the uid the client associates with
              the name.

              In  order  to do this, the NFS server must know the
              client's NIS domain.  This is specified as an argu-
              ment to the map_nis options, e.g.

              map_nis=foo.com

              Note  that it may not be sufficient to simply spec-
              ify the NIS domain here; you may have to take addi-
              tional actions before nfsd is actually able to con-
              tact the server. If your distribution uses the  NYS
              library,  you  can  specify one or more NIS servers
              for the client's domain in  /etc/yp.conf.   If  you
              are  using a different NIS library, you may have to
              obtain a special ypbind(8) daemon that can be  con-
              figured via yp.conf.

       anonuid and anongid
              These options explicitly set the uid and gid of the
              anonymous account.  This option is primarily useful
              for  PC/NFS  clients,  where  you  might  want  all
              requests appear to be from one user. As an example,
              consider  the  export  entry  for  /home/joe in the
              example section below, which maps all  requests  to
              uid 150 (which is supposedly that of user joe).

EXAMPLE
       # sample /etc/exports file
       /               master(rw) trusty(rw,no_root_squash)
       /projects       proj*.local.domain(rw)
       /usr            *.local.domain(ro) @trusted(rw)
       /home/joe       pc001(rw,all_squash,anonuid=150,anongid=100)
       /pub            (ro,insecure,all_squash)
       /pub/private    (noaccess)

       The  first  line exports the entire filesystem to machines
       master and trusty.  In addition to write access,  all  uid
       squashing  is  turned  off for host trusty. The second and
       third entry show examples for wildcard hostnames and  net-
       groups  (this  is  the  entry `@trusted'). The fourth line
       shows the entry for the  PC/NFS  client  discussed  above.
       Line  5  exports the public FTP directory to every host in
       the  world,  executing  all  requests  under  the   nobody
       account.  The  insecure  option  in this entry also allows
       clients with NFS implementations that don't use a reserved
       port  for NFS. The last line denies all NFS clients access
       to the private directory.

CAVEATS
       Unlike other NFS server implementations, this nfsd  allows
       you  to export both a directory and a subdirectory thereof
       to the same host, for instance /usr  and  /usr/X11R6.   In
       this  case,  the  mount options of the most specific entry
       apply. For instance,  when  a  user  on  the  client  host
       accesses  a file in /usr/X11R6, the mount options given in
       the /usr/X11R6 entry apply. This is  also  true  when  the
       latter is a wildcard or netgroup entry.

FILES
       /etc/exports

DIAGNOSTICS
       An  error parsing the file is reported using syslogd(8) as
       level NOTICE from a DAEMON whenever nfsd(8)  or  mountd(8)
       is started up.  Any unknown host is reported at that time,
       but often not all hosts are not yet known to  named(8)  at
       boot  time, thus as hosts are found they are reported with
       the same syslogd(8) parameters.

                          11 August 1997                        1

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