This post describes how to create NFS shares in Ubuntu Linux and mount them in Windows.
If you ever wanted to enable NFS in a Windows environment, the steps below are a great place to start. It shows you how to connect Windows to NFS shares hosted on Ubuntu Linux.
NFS or Network File System is a distributed file system that can be enabled in a client/server environment. NFS is easy to configure for those wanting to allow NFS client machines to access NFS mount points on a server using NFS protocol.
Continue below to get NFS shares created on Ubuntu Linux and mounted in Windows.
For this tutorial, we’re going to be using two systems:
- Ubuntu Computer with IP address 10.0.2.7
- Windows Computer with IP address 10.0.2.4
How to Install NFS on Ubuntu Linux
To get the NFS server working, you must install the server packages. To do that, run the commands below:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
Configure the folder you want to share when the server packages are installed. For this tutorial, we will share an already existing folder—the Home folder for users.
How to export NFS Shares in Ubuntu Linux
So now that the NFS server package has been installed on Ubuntu, open its export file by running the commands below. Then share the /home folder with all clients on the local subnet (10.0.2.0/24).
sudo nano /etc/exports
Then add the line below to the exports file. This enables the /home folder to be shared with the local NFS client on the local subnet. You can choose to share the entire subnet or a single computer. Just make sure to specify the machine IP address in the definition file.
/home 10.0.2.0/24(rw,no_root_squash)
Save the file and exit.
The two definitions are defined as:
- no_root_squash = Turn off root squashing. This option is mainly helpful for disk-less clients.
- rw = Allow both read and write requests on an NFS volume.
After defining the folder, you want to share, run the commands below to restart the NFS service on Ubuntu.
sudo systemctl restart nfs-server
How to enable NFS in Windows
After sharing the folder on the NFS server, open Windows 10 machine and go to Control Panel ==> Programs ==> Programs and Features
Then click on Turn Windows features on or off, as shown in the image below
When the config pane opens, select and enable Services for NFS
Click Ok and closeout.
That should enable Windows clients to mount NFS shares. Now that this feature is enabled on your Windows machine, open the command prompt and mount the share from the NFS server.
mount 10.0.2.7:/home Z:\
You should see Windows mount the share.
You can now go to Windows File Explorer and see the mounted share.
That should do it!
The mount command in windows 10 gives returns an error without the \\ before the ip address
Hi! Thank you for the article! Could you change from `mount 10.0.2.7/home Z:\` to `mount 10.0.2.7:/home Z:\` how on your screenshot, please.
Done… Thanks for that
on my W10, after mounting my share it did not appear under “This PC” I just mapped manually
thanks
Didn’t really work for my needs, not possible to edit existing files. I tried for hours to get real write permissions but it isn’t possible
@Kross – try this to enable write permissions – refer https://graspingtech.com/mount-nfs-share-windows-10/
I can see the directory but the files in the directory are not visible from windows. I have a network with a couple of linux machines and the 2nd linux box can see the files but windows cannot:
T:\>dir
Volume in drive T has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000
Directory of T:\
17/11/2018 01:15 ..
17/11/2018 01:15 .
0 File(s) 8,192 bytes
2 Dir(s) 160,240,812,032 bytes free
T:\>mount \\192.168.1.5\export\video T:
fred@HTPC-A:/mnt/video$ ls -al
total 48
drwxrwxr-x 12 fred fred 4096 May 3 2019 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Nov 7 2018 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 fred fred 4096 May 8 2019 CNNs
drwxrwxr-x 9 fred fred 4096 Mar 23 2017 GoPro
drwxrwxr-x 13 fred fred 4096 Mar 23 2017 Music
drwxrwxr-x 14 fred fred 4096 Mar 23 2017 TV
fred@HTPC-A:/mnt/video$
Really thank you I have passed my exam because of your tutorial 🙂