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Set up Server for NFS in Windows Server 2003 R2

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Set up Server for NFS in Windows Server 2003 R2

In this post, I will talk about configuring Microsoft Services for Network File System, mainly Server for NFS and User Name Mapping, in Windows Server 2003 R2. You can follow the same steps for Services for UNIX (SFU) 3.5 except only a few of them because of some changes introduced with Windows Server 2003 R2.

As we move forward setting up things for us, I have tried to include information on likely problems that may be encountered and facts which help understand Server for NFS behavior which sometimes is confusing.

And to keep the post short, I have broken them into pages -

    1. Introduction and installation of Services for NFS on R2
    2. Sharing folders over NFS
    3. Mouting NFS Share on NFS client
    4. Who's 4294967294?
    5. Configuring User Name Mapping
    6. Using chown/chgrp from UNIX clients

You'll soon discover how Server for NFS makes life easier in heterogeneous environments.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    Great article! I hope you write more on these utilities.

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2007
    Great article indeed! But I do have a question: what to do when the *nix systems use NIS, where no root user is defined? Then I can't map the root user to an Administrator. NFS mounts are made by a local root user, and the user 4294967294 pops up again. How can I solve this?

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    That's a real problem and you cannot solve it unless you add an account with UID 0 to your NIS database. However, if you're on R2, you can assign UID 0 to an Administrator and enable Active Directory Lookup along with User Name Mapping. I guess that should do the trick.

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    I hope you don't mind me asking further, but I'm getting quite desperate :-) I am running Windows Storage Server 2k3 R2 (64 bit). The domain controllers however, are not R2. The only UID I can assign (on a DC) is a Unix attribute (from SFU). Is this the UID you mean? I already tried, but it didn't work... Many thanks in advance!

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    Send me a mail using the Email button on the blog side bar - I guess I have a lot more to know about your setup. Give me an idea about how things are set up in your mail.

  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2008
    First, it is worth noting that Username Mapping only works with Windows usernames that have a password set for the corresponding account on the server.  This would not show up on most systems, where passwords are naturally set, but on the embedded systems that we make, it is common to not bother with passwords.  If mapping is attempted to a username that has no password, then files owned by that username on the server will display on the client as owned by the mapped name on the server (correct), but any files written by the client will be created on the server as owned by anonymouslogin (not what is desired). -- On a separate topic, I did not find any mention of the Windows firewall on this site.  There are instructions for opening the firewall for the NFS server at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891760

  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2008
    True when the Windows systems are serving the shares. This is required because NTFS will not permit access unless it sees authentication token. I am yet to write one or two post about UNM and I'll detail about firewall ports etc as well - just not finding enough time to concentrate on it.

  • Ashish
  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2009
    I'm still getting a problem with the nfs mount. Here are the commands to mount:

chmod 777 mnt

mount -F nfs bfunke100:AdlibExpress /mnt

ls /mnt

NFS access failed for server bfunke100: error 7 (RPC: Authentication error) /mnt: I/O error On nfs sharing on the folder I have ALL MACHINES with root access allowed. Do I really need a domain controller to get this to work?

  • Anonymous
    May 20, 2009
    Are you on W2K3 R2? Seems you are using local accounts for user name mapping. Do you have the Server for NFS Authentication installed on this machine?
  • Ashish

  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2009
    I am configuring Windows 2003 R2 NFS server to share out the entire ddrive.  I continue to get mount i/o errors when I go to mount it.  However, when I create a directory under the D drive and share that directory out, I can mount that directory. Is it a supported configuration to share out an entire drive on Windows 2003 R2?

  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2009
    You need to grant the "Bypass traverse checking" user right to Everyone to make it happen. This will not allows the users to list folder contents but just traverse through the folders. I believe this has to do with certain NFS calls which fail if the paths cannot be traversed on the server side.

  • Ashish