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IBM i NFS Share Mount How-To Notes

Overview

Mounting an NFS share over an IFS directory is a great way to provide access to remote Windows or Linux file directories from IBM i and QShell/PASE without exposing them via NetServer, SMB and QTNC which can cause issues when user authentication doesn't match across systems.

❗ You should limit access to your NFS shares to the IBM i IP address so this adds another level of security by limiting which machines can access the NFS shares. This is done on your remote Windows or Linux NFS share configuration.

❗ You SHOULD NOT need to start the IBM i NFS Server in order to mount an IFS directory over an NFS file share.

Feel free to contribute any notes you have on accessing NFS file shares from IBM i.

NFS Share Network Mount Example

For our example we will assume we have a remote Windows or Linux Server on IP address: 1.1.1.1 with a remote NFS share of /nfsmount1 that will get mounted over an IFS directory named /nfsmount1 for consistency.

It's always a good idea to name your remote Windows and Linux directories, NFS shares and IFS directories consistently so the names are easily recognizable by your applications and users.

Mount NFS Share using NFS share named /nfsmount1 over IFS directory /nfsmount1

An NFS share is always mounted over an existing IFS directory path which means once mounted the local IFS files in the directory cannot be seen because the IFS directory is mapped to a remote NFS share and the local files in the IFS folder are hidden because of the mount. Once unmounted, the local files in teh IFS directory can be accessed again.

❗ Note: Usually if mounting an NFS share over an IFS directory, it's probably a good idea to dedicate the IFS directory just for the the NFS mount and don't put any files in the local IFS directory. This will help avoid confusion that may occur where users may think local files have disappeared.

Create the IFS directory you will mount your NFS share over

MKDIR DIR('/nfsmount1') DTAAUT(*RWX) OBJAUT(*ALL)

This example mounts to an NFS share on remote NFS server: 1.1.1.1 on share /nfsmount1

MOUNT TYPE(*NFS) MFS('1.1.1.1:/nfsmount1') +                  
MNTOVRDIR('/nfsmount1') +                         
OPTIONS('rw,nosuid,retry=5,rsize=8096,wsize=8096,+
timeo=20,retrans=2,acregmin=30,acregmax=60,+
acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60,soft') +       
CODEPAGE(*BINARY *ASCII)

This example unmounts the NFS share that us mounted over IFS directory /nfsmount1

UNMOUNT TYPE(*NFS) MNTOVRDIR('/nfsmount1')

How to see if an NFS share is mounted

WRKLNK '/nfsmount1/*'

If you can see files, the share is mounted.

Another way to check NFS mount status.

WRKLNK '/nfsmount1'

Take option 8 and you will see the following on the Display Attributes Screen if the remote NFS share is mounted:

Object . . . . . . :   /nfsmount1                        
                                                         
Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   DIR           
                                                         
Owner  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   *NOUSRPRF     
System object is on  . . . . . . . . . :   Remote        
  Object overflowed  . . . . . . . . . :   No            
                                                         
Coded character set ID . . . . . . . . :   437           
Hidden file  . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   No            
PC system file . . . . . . . . . . . . :   No            
Read only  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   No            
                                                         
Need to archive (PC) . . . . . . . . . :   No            
Need to archive (System) . . . . . . . :   No

In this example the IFS directory doesn't have anything mounted over it

Object . . . . . . :   /nfsmount1                  
                                                   
Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   DIR     
                                                   
Owner  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   RICHARD
System object is on  . . . . . . . . . :   Local   
Auxiliary storage pool . . . . . . . . :   1       
  Object overflowed  . . . . . . . . . :   No      
                                                   
Coded character set ID . . . . . . . . :   37      
Hidden file  . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   No      
PC system file . . . . . . . . . . . . :   No      
Read only  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   No

Copying Files from and to NFS Shares using the CPY CL Command

Copy file from IFS to NFS location. Make sure to specify CCSID(437) and AUT(*INDIR) or you may get an authority error when copying files to an nfs directory from the IFS.

CPY OBJ('/tmp/test.pdf') TOOBJ('/nfsmount1/test.pdf') TOCCSID(437) DTAFMT(*BINARY) REPLACE(*YES) AUT(*INDIR)

Copy file from NFS to IFS location. Make sure to specify CCSID(437) and AUT(*INDIR) or you may get an authority error when copying files from an nfs directory to the IFS.

CPY OBJ('/nfsmount1/test.pdf') TOOBJ('/tmp/test.pdf') FROMCCSID(437) DTAFMT(*BINARY) REPLACE(*YES) AUT(*INDIR)

QShell/PASE IFS File Copy from and to NFS Shares

Copying files is pretty much like copying any other file in QSH/PASE. Use the cp command.

Initial copy from IFS to NFS mount if file doesn't exist on remote NFS share. If you do a WRKLNK option 8 on the file after copied, you will see a CCSID of 437. This can cause issues if you need to later replace the file on the remote NFS mount because the IBMi thinks it has a CCSID of 437.

cp /tmp/test.pdf /nfsmount1/test.pdf

Attempt to copy to NFS mount if file exists already. You may receive the following error because it appears the cp command is not CCSID aware.

cp /tmp/test.pdf  /nfsmount1/test.pdf                                      
cp: 001-2230 Error found setting CCSID to 437 for file /nfsmount1/test3.pdf.
Operation not supported.$

Attempt to copy file to NFS mount if file exists already. The following options should work. Either use the -t switch option or first delete the remote NFS file with rm command. Then copy it as a new file via cp command and this should work.

Copy file to NFS share and replace with -t switch

cp -t /tmp/test.pdf /nfsmount1/test.pdf

I'm not exactly sure why the -t switch works to replace the remote file since it's exact usage documantation says:

 -t, --target-directory=DIRECTORY
              copy all SOURCE arguments into DIRECTORY

Without the -t switch we get an error similar to the following:

cp: 001-2230 Error found setting CCSID to 437 for file /nfsmount1/test.pdf. Operation not supported.

If the -t switch works for you, that's good. Otherwise you can always remove rm the remote file before copying it with cp. The fun of QShell/PASE.

Remove existing file and copy to NFS share

rm /nfsmount1/test.pdf
cp /tmp/test.pdf  /nfsmount1/test.pdf

General Setup for NFS File Sharing from Windows or Linux

Sharing Windows Files via NFS

Install Windows Service for Unix on Windows 2012
https://www.serverlab.ca/tutorials/windows/storage-file-systems/configuring-an-nfs-server-on-windows-server-2012-r2/

Install NFS Server on Windows 2019
https://computingforgeeks.com/install-and-configure-nfs-server-on-windows-server

Sharing NFS Directory from Windows

Directory to share on C: drive
image

Add Everyone user to the directory with permissions
image

Right click directory and go to the NFS Sharing Tab.

Set the settings as shown.

image

image

Click Permissions tab to provide No Access, Read Only or Read-Write permissions to a remote system.

In this example we explicitly set No Permissions for all machines and then add read/write permissions to the IBM i on IP address 192.168.101.21
image

image

Allow unmapped user access via NFS for IBMi when accessing Windows NFS shares

You may need to do this on Windows 2016, 2019 and newer versions of Windows Server.

Put Everyone user on the Windows directory and NFS share if possible.

Add the Everyone user to NTFS permissions and give it Read/Write or Full Control.

Then check Allow unmapped user access by UID/GID.

Theoretically that should be what you need to do to make it work.

Then from PASE try copying a file with the cp command to test as noted above.

If that works, try copying files from a 5250 session via the CPY command as noted above.

Now you don't need QNTC or SAMBA then at all for sending and receiving files from/to Windows shares.

Example NFS permissions screen for Windows 2016, 2019 and above.

image

Sharing Linux Files via NFS

https://cloud.netapp.com/blog/azure-anf-blg-linux-nfs-server-how-to-set-up-server-and-client

Additional IBM i NFS and Other NFS Links

IBM i Network FIle System
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.5?topic=systems-network-file-system-nfs

Windows Services for Network File Systems
https://forsenergy.com/en-us/nfs__lh/html/1f02f8b2-e653-4583-8391-84d3411badd1.htm

Windows Services for NFS - Allow Root and Anonymous Access to Resources by NFS Clients
https://forsenergy.com/en-us/nfs__lh/html/47b01fb7-a6f7-4be0-ae99-2fbda7974a8b.htm

Windows - Deploy Network File System (NFS)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/nfs/deploy-nfs