Hi there,

I am still a beginner so don't crucify me for asking silly questions.

I run a computer with slackware and export 3 drives via NFS over our home network.

I would like to restrict certain directories but because NFS does not require a sign-on; how can I restrict it properly ?

If I say that only the user with ID 412 has access to a certain folder then that means all somebody has to do it mount the share using a UID of 412 on their 'LOCAL' computer, and they have full access ?


Please can somebody help ?
I'd like a way to only allow users of on the server to use NFS and I want a way to verify they are who they say they are and then apply a usage policy.
Instead on somebody just plugging into the network, spoofing a UID and getting access.

Maybe I am totally wrong about my whole interpretation ?


Thanks in advance for any help !!

Jamie

Do some digging around exports (man exports). /etc/exports is the file at the server end that should get you where you want to be.

Sorry - should have read more closely

I suspect that you can't really do what you want with nfs. Have you looked into samba, or openafs?

Hi Billy,

I'll look into samba as you suggest.

Why would NFS miss such a fundamental element ?
Or why would I think it was fundamental, when clearly; it isn't ! ?



Cheers
Jamie

I don't know the answer, but I suspect that when NFS was conceived, user contro lwas done at the client end, so log into a remote system, the account setup at that end took control (through use of automounts or what ever). Since these are under root's control, it prety much gets you there

Assuming all the files are on machine A, and the remote machine is B, couldn't you just change the read/write permissions on the mount point of B so that only certain users could use it?

Myabe I'm wrong - I'm kind of assuming the guys with the pcs on the home network have root access (implicit in my comment above)

You really should look at OpenAFS, which was designed from the ground up to do what you are looking for. AFS has a much finer granularity of ACL control built in.

http://www.openafs.org

But ASF is a pretty big undertaking for a home network