topic Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts in Operating System - Linux

Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Andrew Kaplan — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:44:02 GMT

Hi there --

I have set up the exporting of filesystems on a particular server. What I want to do now is limit the access to the filesystems to one system. The exports file that I have in place has the following syntax:

/home/nohadani (sync,rw,root_squash)
/media/disk/nohadani (sync,rw,root_squash)

The problem that I am having is I am able to mount the directories in question from a remote host other than the one specified in the exports file. What other configuration steps do I need in order to limit access to the NFS mounts exclusively to the host listed in exports? Thanks.

Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Stuart Browne — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:28:04 GMT

You need to re-export the exports file:

exportfs -ra

Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Dave Olker — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:41:59 GMT

Hi Andrew,

Another thing to check is to make sure there is no space between the hostname and the open parenthesis. In other words, some Linux variants treat this string:

/media/disk/nohadani (sync,rw,root_squash)

differently from:

/media/disk/nohadani (sync,rw,root_squash)

Note the blank space between and '('. Once you have the /etc/exports syntax correct, be sure to issue the "exportfs -av" command as previously suggested.

Regards,

Dave

Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Andrew Kaplan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Hi there --

Thanks for the help. When I ran the exportfs -rav command, the output indicated the hostname was not recognized. Most likely this is due to some DNS error.

To expedite matters, I replaced the hostname with the ip address of the system in question, and reran the exportfs -rav command again. There were no errors in the output, and a subsequent test on a remote system other than the one in question resulted in a permission denied message, which is what was supposed to happen.

Thanks again for the help.

Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Ivan Ferreira — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:52:36 GMT

Remember that NFS uses tcpwrappers, and you can also use hosts.allow, hosts.deny files to limit access to NFS services.

Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Andrew Kaplan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:09:12 GMT

Hi there --

I need to edit the original message. Is there a way I can do so? Thanks.

Re: Limiting Access to NFS mounts

Dennis Handly — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:34:19 GMT

>I need to edit the original message. Is there a way I can do so?

No. If there is a security/privacy issue because you have that in your text, you could ask the moderators to remove it. But not for some simple typos. You can just correct it in a reply.

For moderator requests, there is a monthly thread in: Your questions regarding ITRC Forums > general: March/April 2009 Issues Requiring Moderator Intervention
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1318758