Mac OS X and Debian Linux LAN research.

Question

Mac OS X and Debian Linux LAN research.
I am currently doing the Google shuffle and am posting this to try to make sure I don't miss something important.
I recently expunged Windoze from the PC on my LAN and installed Debian Etch (testing, kernal 2.6.12-1-686, Gnome desktop) GNU Linux (I feel so much cleaner now My eventual goal is to do ObjC/Cocoa type cross-platform software development using GNUstep.
Preparation though involves getting the now isolated Linux box back on my LAN. Two considerations are file sharing (of course) and capturing system images of the Linux system in my Mac restoration strategy. On the Linux box one of my backup techniques is Mondo for bootable DVD system images, and the other is g4l (ghost for linux) with which I can clone to a local HD and/or image the Linux system to another system via ftp (vsftp suggested by g4l).
There are two internal 80GB HDs on the Linux box, and two internal 250GB HDs plus several external 250GB HDs (used for alternating clones) on my PMac G5.
I'm thinking NFS or ? and strictly avoiding Samba/NetWare/anything windoze related.
Any pointers and opinions would be greatly appreciated
Thank You,
Lee C
"The early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese." -- Willie Nelson
See the article Backup::Restore.
Dual 2.5 Power Mac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

Answer 1

Gary -- unfortunately, I am back, with memories fading as fast as my suntan.
Some remarks on NFS
OS X, like other unix operating systems, can function as both an NFS server and NFS client. Canonical unix systems permit the system administrator to configure this by editing two ascii text files. The file /etc/fstab controls what remote disks (i.e., those served by another machine) will be mounted, and the file /etc/exports controls what files will be served via NFS to other computers, and can restrict access according to the system administrators needs. All of this is true of OS X as well, except that the information from these ascii text files must somehow be transfered into the netinfo database, a peculiarly OS X construct. Fortunately, this can be accomplished without too much pain.
Mounting remote filesystems with NFS
To mount a filesystem from a remote NFS server, you need to do the following:
1. Create a mountpoint of your choosing. You can do this anywhere, but I find making a directory a the root level to be the most convenient. For example, lets say we want to mount two filesystems that are being exported from another computer called Simpson with the domain name simpson.springfield.org. Well assume it has the OS X filesystem structure, but any unix filesystem will behave analogously. The first filesystem we will want to mount will be the remote /Users directory, and the second will be /Volumes/Homer, as the computer simpson.springfield.org has a second hard-drive creatively named Homer. Hence we will create two mountpoint directories as follows: sudo mkdir -p /nfs_mountpoint/Simpson /nfs_mountpoint/Homer
2. Next we need to create the file /etc/fstab with the following two lines in it: simpson.springfield.org:/Users /nfs_mountpoint/Simpson nfs -P, -b 0 0 simpson.springfield.org:/Volumes/Homer /nfs_mountpoint/Homer nfs -P, -b 0 0 The first field is the domain name (it is safest to give the whole thing), and the second, separated by a colon, is the filesystem that has been exported. The third field is the corresponding mount point you just made, the fourth tells the system that this is an nfs device that is being mounted, and the remaining arguments control access and mounting protocols. man fstab for details. The disk is read/write accessible by default, but the users numerical uid (eg: 503) must be the same on both the host an client machine. (Be aware that if joe on the server has uid 503 and sarah on the client has uid 503, sarah will have read-write access to joes files!)5
3. Now read the information into the netinfo database. It is a good idea not to screw this up.
sudo niload -m -v fstab . < /etc/fstab
4. You can now mount the remote filesystems with the commands
sudo mount /nfs_mountpoint/Simpson
sudo mount /nfs_mountpoint/Homer
or to mount all at once, issue
sudo mount -a
Next time you reboot, the automounter and the NFS Startup Item will handle the mounting for you. I'll mention a couple of tweaks you might want to make in a moment, but first lets look at how to export a filesystem.
Exporting your filesystems with NFS
The previous section assumed your computer was a client machine. Now let's assume it is a server. Any machine can be both, so well export our filesystem /Users to the machine called Simpson for this example.
To export a filesystem, you need to do the following:
1. Get a static IP address for each of your NFS server machines, and a corresponding qualified domain name such as simpson.springfield.org that won't change.
2. Create a file called /etc/exports and put the following line into it:
/Users -maproot=nobody simpson.springfield.org
3. Reboot, or run the following commands as root or with sudo:
rm -f /var/db/mountdtab
mountd nfsd -t -u -n 6
This is more or less equivalent to issuing exportfs -a on other unix systems.
You've been served, as they say on British TV and in the grand jury subpoena business.
NFS Manager automates NFS exports and mounts
Another way of handling this, as Gary Mentioned, is to get ahold of NFS Manager, donation-ware that provides a convenient interface for setting up both NFS mounts and NFS exports. If you can live with automounter, which is on by default, this will get you going without complications within minutes. The documentation is superbly written.