Linux NFS with the TVIX Media Center

NFS; a software way that runs in user-land memory, and a kernel way that runs in kernel-land memory. I personally
believe the kernel approach is more stable and fast, so it is what I discuss below.

First use apt-get and install portmap; which is our daemon that will dictate what computers to allow/deny privelages to.
And also install nfs-kernel-server.... The NFS daemon server that runs in kernel-land.

$ sudo apt-get install portmap nfs-kernel-server

In my particular home setup, I use gateway 192.168.1.1 off the router, so in the file hosts.allow I give all privelages to my
machines. You can leave the last address field of each entry blank if you want this to behave like a wildcard.
$ cat /etc/hosts.allow

mountd: 192.168.1.
statd: 192.168.1.
portmap: 192.168.1.
rquotad: 192.168.1.

It is also important to deny everyone else (those machines that aren't in my network). The file hosts.deny will actually be
processed first, and then hosts.allow will be processed (by portmap).
$ cat /etc/hosts.deny

mountd: ALL
statd: ALL
portmap: ALL
rquotad: ALL

The file /ext/exports explicitly states what directories we want to share on the system that is the acting as the NFS server.
$ cat /etc/exports

/tvixhd1 192.168.*(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)

In particular, for the TVIX Media Center, it can only connect to folders coming off server's root directory. Thus, make a
symbolic link to whatever folder you are going to share. In my case, I want to share videos under
/mnt/lacie/hellanzb/done... so I create a symbolic link to it using the name /tvixhd1.
:/$ sudo ln -s /mnt/lacie/hellanzb/done/ /tvixhd1

An example of verifying the creation of the symbolic link in the / directory on the unix filesystem.
:/$ ls -l | grep tvix
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2007-10-02 15:02 tvixhd1 -> /mnt/lacie/hellanzb/done/

We are done the configuration... we now need to restard the portmap and nfs-kernel-server daemons!
$ sudo /etc/init.d/portmap restart
$ sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart

There are a couple tricks on the TVIX that must be known, as it's no secret the manul is poorly written. What the TVIX
refers to as the server "name" should actually be the server "directory" coming off the NFS-server's root filesystem. Thus,
in our particular setup, it should read "tvixhd1" (without the quotations). Also, know that in TVIX, the IP Address
192.168.001.055 is the same as 192.168.1.55. You cannot delete the leading 0s in TVIX. Furthermore, you cannot
specify a particular port to connect through; thus make sure your NFS server is hosting on port 2049 (this is the default).

There are also several useful commands to run on the NFS server. You...

• Can verify what is currently shared with 'sudo showmount -e localhost'
• Can re-export a /etc/export while daemon is running with 'sudo exportfs -ra'
• Can check nfs-related ports being used with 'sudo rpcinfo -p'
• Can see transfer/access history of nfs server protocols with 'sudo nfsstat'