I'm hoping to have one server through which (from any client) I could access files from any other client connected to the server. After doing some reading on NFS, it appears that I would have to make each client an NFS server and export that clients directories so that they can be mounted by the other clients.

Could I mount a directory from a client on a server and then export that mounted directory to other clients? This way I only go through one machine to mount exports.

Or is there another way to share files from many clients through one server?

Is each machine being a server and a client the way NFS is supposed to work for sharing files over a home wireless network?

I think the more common method is to have one file server with the rest of the machines saving files they want to share to the server. I'm trying to think of an advantage to your idea. Seems like it would adversely increase network overhead for machine A accessing a share on machine B, which in turn must access it from machine C. Better to have a central repository, possibly with partial or full mirrors on other machines. Then only one machine would need an NFS server configured, and the others could read from and write to that share as clients.

Another way would be separate specialized repositories on different machines, with clients mounting them directly to access shared files. Like machine A might serve all the music files, machine B documents, machine C something else. This might be better if you're worried about overloading a single server, especially if they are doubling as desktop boxes.

Thanks. This clears up my questions of the general method of NFS use.

I think I was mainly going for a way to utilize storage space. I have a windows machine with a terabyte drive that doesn't get used much; a mac with 250 gig; a laptop running 4 linux distros with limited drive space; and I have 3 old drives revived from the past hooked up to a motherboard and power supply with no case running slackware.

Your option B sounds like the ticket for me. Although I would love to have a traditional server. This makes me want to hook up a large drive to the slack machine and dump everything on it. : )

Thanks again for the reply.