"Root" Login Over NFS

[Edward Wynn]

Hi,

I have just set up NFS between my HP-UX 11 and NT 4 machines - the NT machine is using Reflection NFS Client.

I want to allow the NT machine to connect as root but cannot get this to work - I have added the server ID in the appropriate box in SAM but to no avail - whenever I try to connect I get a request denied message back from PCNFSD.

Has anyone any ideas please ?

Thanks, Eddie

[Patrick Wallek]

Make sure your /etc/exports file has an entry like the following:

/exported/dir root=hostname

After this, do an 'exportfs -av' to re-export everything.

Do a 'man exports' for more information and the syntax in the /etc/exports file.

[Edward Wynn]

Thanks for the reply, I have just tried this and the situation is still the same. I now have the following in /etc/exports

/tmp access=eddiew01,root=eddiew01

and have done an exportfs -av and restarted the daemons, but I still get the same message when I try to logon as root on the client.

"NFS Logon Failed: The PCNFSD daemon failed the requested authentication"

Any more thoughts ?

Thanks, Eddie

[Danny Engelbarts]

Hi,

Is the NT hostname known on the server? (in hosts or DNS)

Greetz, Danny.

[Edward Wynn]

Hi,

Yes, the NT Server is known to the HP-UX server (hosts file)....also I can connect to the NFS services from the NT server using any username except root.

Eddie

[Patrick Wallek]

Instead of having the line in /etc/exports as you do:

/tmp access=eddiew01,root=eddiew01

Try this line and then re-export:

/tmp root=eddiew01

I think the acess and the root are exclusive. If you have access before root, or if you have them both, then I think access takes precedence.

Try it and let us know.

[Edward Wynn]

Good idea but no joy I'm afraid...

[Patrick Wallek]

One thing I did notice in the man page is that they have a dash (-) in front of their access lists in exports. According to that your entry should look like:

/tmp -root=eddiew01

Is there any way in your WRQ NFS Client to set the user name it is trying to connect as? I attempted to download a demo of their client, but it won't install on my PC.

[Vinit Adya]

The syntax for /etc/exports is:

path [-restriction, restriction,...]

so the line in /etc/exports should look like

/tmp -access=eddiew01,root=eddiew01

Please note the "-" in front of access

Hope it helps...
Cheers
Vinit

[Edward Wynn]

Thanks for the responses, I have tried all the suggestions to date (with -, without -) all syntaxes and still no joy. So I decided to try

/tmp -anon=0

Which according to the man page should give root access to all but again I cannot login as root. I am beginning to suspect that this is not an NFS export problem but something with the root account ? Any more thoughts please.....

Eddie

PS: Patrick with Reflection NFS you can change your username on the fly and relogin or you can change it in the Reflection Network setings - I have tried both of these but it has made no difference !

[Edward Wynn]

I have also just tried creating an account and assigning it UID 0, then with
/tmp -access=eddiew01,root=eddiew01
I try to connect with this new account and I get the same error !

Eddie

[Edward Wynn]

Good news at last - I have fixed the problem.

The problem is that by default the PCNFSD daemon is configured to only authenticate login requests where the UID is in the range 100-60002. If you want to change this you must create a file /etc/pcnfsd.conf and add this line to it:
uidrange 0-60002 (or your desired range)
then restart the pcnfsd - and all is OK, providing of course that you have the root= stuff we already discussed in the /etc/exports file.

Cheers for all the help.

Eddie