Aliasing NFS export path

Question

Is there a way to define an alias for a NFS-exported directory directly inside /etc/exports (without using a symlink)?

For example, I want to access this export

/home/username/nfsdir 192.168.0.100(rw,sync,no_root_squash)

as "<hostname>:/myalias" instead of "<hostname>:/home/username/nfsdir".

Convict · Answer 1 · 2010-02-08 09:47:27Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

You could use mount -t bind to create the "alias". ie

mount -t bind /home/username/nfsdir /myalias

and then export /myalias.

To make this permanent, add the following line to your /etc/fstab

/home/username/nfsdir /myalias bind bind 0 0

answered Feb 8 '10 at 9:47

	Right, but that is the same as creating a symlink. I'm searching for a way to do this using the `/etc/exports` file only. Something like the share names in Windows/Samba, which are mapped to real paths. – AndiDog Feb 8 '10 at 11:56
	Which OS is your nfs server running? It appears that some nfs servers support a "refer" option which may do what you want. See "man exports" on your nfs server to see if it supports "refer". – Convict Feb 8 '10 at 12:45
	It's a minimal Debian lenny. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try that asap. – AndiDog Feb 8 '10 at 13:13
	Tried `/myalias 192.168.139.0/24(rw,sync,no_root_squash,refer=/real/directory@192.168.39.129)` (.129 being the NFS server itself) with no success. It keeps showing me the empty directory `/myalias` instead of "forwarding" me to the files in `/real/path`. Can you give me a working example config? (note: I tried it with and without `mount --bind /real/directory /real/directory` as described in the man page) – AndiDog Feb 8 '10 at 15:22
	Sorry, I haven't used the refer option before. :-( I saw it there and thought it might be useful to you. – Convict Feb 9 '10 at 1:31

feedback

1 Answer