NFS access to /storage from another Linux machine

[Ron Olsen]

I run Gentoo Linux on my computer, and would like to mount the VortexBox /storage file system on my Gentoo Linux machine with read/write permissions using NFS. This would allow me to use a GUI tag-editing program on my Gentoo system to edit tags on my VortexBox music database, as well as ease file transfer between systems.


Can anyone tell me how to do this?

[andrew]

Might be easier to mount it using Samba. That way you wouldn't need to make any changes to the VortexBox. NFS would work as well.

[Ron Olsen]

I thought Samba was use to network with a Windows machine, and NFS was used to network Linux machines. Can I use Samba to network two Linux machines? If so, how?

[andrew]

Samba is the best network protocol for almost any system OSX, Linux, Windows, etc. I don't know what Linux GUI you are using but you should be able to search network shares.

[Ron Olsen]

OK, I figured it out. The Gentoo Samba wiki was a great help:


http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Samba


I first had to install Samba and the mount-cifs packages on my Gentoo Linux machine:


emerge -av net-fs/mount-cifs net-fs/samba


I also has to make sure that my Linux kernel has CIFS file system support enabled:


In /usr/src/linux/.config, verify that CONFIG_CIFS=m


I ran "smbclient -L vortexbox" and got a password prompt. I entered the root password for my vortexbox, and found out that the sharenames are "files", "music", "pictures" and "movies".


I created a mount point via "mkdir /mnt/music"


I then mounted the music share via "mount //vortexbox/music /mnt/music"


and got a password prompt. I entered the root password on my vortexbox and voila! the vortexbox /storage/music directory was mounted on my Gentoo machine at /mnt/music.


I will add an entry to /etc/fstab for this mount point to simplify things in the future. Details on how to do this are in the Gentoo Samba Wiki. But at least now I can access the vortexbox music directory on my computer!