Friendly ARM–Mini2440- Setting up a NFS server

 

NFS – Network File System allows a server to share files with clients.In our case host PC is the server & mini2440 Friendly Arm device is the client.

NFS is similar to SAMBA of Windows machines.Using NFS a folder in host PC can be accessed from within the mini2440 device.

To set up NFS server on host PC you need to edit configuration file called exports which is in /etc/exports.

This file contains a list of entries indicating a volume that is shared & how it is shared.It has the access control list for file systems which may be exported to clients.

To start with install the NFS service by typing in Terminal following command :    sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server

 

            Provide the super user password to start installation.

          

    Now edit the file /etc/exports

         

The exports file will open up.Add the following line to the top of file.

 /opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples 192.168.1.*(rw,no_root_squash)

& save it.

            

Here /opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples is the folder on host PC you want to share with mini2440.

192.168.1.* is the IP address of mini2440. (open PuTTY terminal & type ifconfig to know the IP address.)

(rw,no_root_squash)  –   rw is Read/Write access enable ,                            no_root_squash –> client machine will have same level of access to  files  on  system as root on server.

Now change mode to give Read,Write,Execute Permission to the folder /opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples  by typing

    $ sudo chmod 777 /opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples

           

Disable any firewall by issuing  : $sudo ufw disable

           

Now you can start the NFS service on PC by typing

  $ sudo service nfs-kernel-server start

     

To verify that NFS is running query the portmapper by command

      rpcinfo –p

You should see the services like  portmapper,nfs ,mountd,..

On Client (mini2440) side mount the file system nfs by typing following command in PuTTY Terminal

mount –t nfs 192.168.1.100:/opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples /mnt/ –o udp,nolock

-t is the type of file system we are mounting (nfs).

192.168.1.100 is the IP address of host PC.

:/opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples  is the folder on host PC you want to share with mini2440

/mnt    -> is the folder on mini2440 you want to link to /opt/FriendlyARM/mini2440/examples  folder on PC.

Note the space between /examples & /mnt & a space after mnt/ & before –o.

udp  -> instructs the NFS mount to use the UDP protocol (& not TCP protocol).

nolock  -> disables file locking

Now create a directory say , mynfs_files within examples folder.

Go to PuTTY Terminal & check up the /mnt folder.There you find the folder we created in PC.

Remove the folder we created by issuing command rmdir mynfs_files from within Linux Terminal

Now you can see in PuTTY terminal the same folder is deleted as well in /mnt folder of mini2440 device.

To execute any file you can issue the command  ./binfilename as seen below

To stop the NFS service ,in Linus terminal type

   $ sudo service nfs-kernel-server stop

    

In PuTTY terminal you can issue command  # umount –t /mnt/

to stop NFS.

Now if you try to access /mnt folder you’ll get server not responding error.

        

You can also boot mini2440 via NFS. Here NFS is set as root file system to boot mini2440.This is an advanced option & discussed in later posts.