Summary

While protocols such as Samba (for file sharing with Windows systems) have made NFS a less prominent file sharing protocol, NFS is still quite often used among computing environments made up primarily of Linux and UNIX systems. Troubleshooting techniques for NFS focus on both the server side (where a directory is exported for use by other computers) and the client side (where shared NFS directories are mounted on client file systems).

Basic NFS configuration in Fedora and Red Hat Linux systems can be done using graphical tools, such as the NFS Server Configuration window and commands. On the server side, the exportfs command and the /etc/exports configuration file are the primary tools for sharing NFS directories. On the client side, the mount command is used to connect an NFS directory to the client computer's local file system.