# nfs and windows?

## TimSSC

I am trying to set up a home server, and I want everyone to be able to access there documents stored on it from both linux and windows.  If I share them with nfs, will windows be able to read them if there is a linux file system?  Or do I need to put everything that is shared with windows on FAT32?

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## intgr

 *TimSSC wrote:*   

> If I share them with nfs, will windows be able to read them if there is a linux file system?

 

IIRC, the Unix Services for Windows NT used to have NFS compatibility, but I think you're much better off exporting the files on a samba share. With my admittedly limited experience, Samba<->Windows has worked generally better than Windows<->Windows shares.

 *TimSSC wrote:*   

> Or do I need to put everything that is shared with windows on FAT32?

 

I don't think that would help you - if I understood you correctly, the server is going to run Linux only? I don't suppose you're really considering moving the HD every time you want Windows to access the files.

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## kEiNsTeiN

The filesystem is not relevant, since it's handled by the kernel, the userspace-programm (NFSd or samba) just uses whatever the kernel offers. I couldn't get Samba to work in time myself, but I didnt really want to in first place. You could use "winscp" or something like that if you only have to transfer a few files, it's an SCP (SSH)-client in MC style...

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## fangorn

As intgr said, it would be much better to use Samba than NFS, as Samba is designed to serve windows clients.

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## MrUlterior

 *fangorn wrote:*   

> As intgr said, it would be much better to use Samba than NFS, as Samba is designed to serve windows clients.

 

NFS outperforms Samba significantly in my experience (I run on bonded gigabit .. )

See 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/unix/sfu/default.mspx

for a free NFS client

http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2883

Is how to install it on Win XP Home

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## fangorn

My vote for samba was not for performance, I know smb has quite some overhead (its used by M$, you know  :Twisted Evil:  ). 

My point is, samba serves in way, windows can understand natively and has in my experience proven to be more stable for always on systems.

Besides, you dont have to bother with windows, which is a major plus in my eyes  :Wink: 

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## intgr

If you have a 100Mbit Ethernet network and don't you need to squeeze out the last drop of performance, I'd say go with Samba as it's more configurable/flexible, more proven and more natural in a Windows environment. On a 100Mbit Ethernet network, you'll be network-bound with file transfers either way.

On a 1Gbit Ethernet environment, though, having the NFS server in the kernel will certaily help to keep the CPU load under control, as it's more lightweight. I'm not very confident about Microsoft's NFS implementation though.

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## TimSSC

 *fangorn wrote:*   

> As intgr said, it would be much better to use Samba than NFS, as Samba is designed to serve windows clients.

 

The reason I wanted to go with nfs is that a lot of it will be mounted on a bunch of linux computers.  And hopefully, it will only be mounted on linux computers.   However, I want to keep my options open.  If the people I am setting this up for (my family)  want to switch back to windows, I want them to still have access to all there files, without me having to do some huge annoying file transfers with sftp.

I haven't used samba much, but can you mount a samba shared directory on linux the same way you can with nfs?  Oh, and its a 100Mbit ethernet, not gigabit.

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## intgr

 *TimSSC wrote:*   

> I haven't used samba much, but can you mount a samba shared directory on linux the same way you can with nfs?

 

There's the CIFS (common internet filesystem) driver which even has UNIX extensions support for Samba server versions that support it - meaning you can manage Unix permissions, hardlinks, symlinks, etc over the share. Personally I would prefer NFS for connecting computers in a Linux/Unix-only environment. Or you can easily have both Samba and NFS simultaneously.

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## TimSSC

 *intgr wrote:*   

> Or you can easily have both Samba and NFS simultaneously.

 

Ooo.... that sounds good.  So I could share the same directory using nfs and samba?  And could multiple computers access it at the same time, using both those services?  That sounds like the best option to me.

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## fangorn

Sure, do it all the time at work.

Just setup samba and nfs and let them run in parallel. Or setup samba later if somebody wants to start using windows.

Both servers can handle multiple access. And sure, if you have them both running they can access the same filesystem simultaneously (with the known restrictions of not modifying the one file at the same time)

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