[Klug-general] NFS + GIDs

[Mike Evans]

Just to throw in my 3d-worth (whatever that is in decimal currency) on this:

When I first started using Linux I used nfs file sharing between our 
laptop, desktop and backup machines.  I'd been in a work environment 
(with solaris servers and Sun diskless workstations IIRC) some 20 years 
ago where this was done but the rule was to have the same user list with 
matching UIDs and GIDs so that's the route I took.  I was using Fedora 
Core 2 at the time.  (Fedora 18 is nearly out so I'm guessing this was 
about 7 years ago.)  Anyway, it worked fine.

Do read the howtos on NFS security, and in particular about rootsquash 
and the like.

Then I hit a bit of a problem when I started running Ubuntu on the 
laptop because it started UIDs at 1000 where Fedora stared at 500 so I 
had some messing to do to let the users show up in the user-switcher 
etc.  Then there was all the messing about with ensuring that the right 
holes were present in the firewalls on each distro.  Then OIy mentioned 
that he used ssh, (via Gnome's virtial file system) and I switched to 
using that and it just worked so NFS hit the carpet.

I now use the sftp:// mount from Nautilus (Gnome's file manager), 
although I personally think that this should be handled at a level below 
the desktop manager and Gnome has no business meddling in virtual 
filesystems.

Mike