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Mount NFS Network Drive

What is NFS?​

NFS (Network File System) is a distributed file system protocol that allows you to share files and directories over a network. It is a client-server system that allows users to access files across a network and treat them as if they are local files.

Pros & cons compared to SMB:

NFSSMB
Pros- Faster than SMB- More secure than NFS
- Better performance- More user-friendly
- Better for Unix/Linux systems- Better for Windows systems
Cons- Less secure than SMB- Slower than NFS
- Not user-friendly- Less performance
tip

The very key difference between NFS and SMB is that NFS is designed for Unix/Linux systems, so it inherits the Unix/Linux file system permissions and ownership. If the use case is doing homelab or working with Unix/Linux systems, NFS is a better choice. For example, if you are using Docker on a Raspberry Pi and want to mount a shared folder from a NAS device, NFS is a better choice.

Prerequisites​

  • A shared NFS folder (for example, NAS device)
  • A Linux machine

Create a NFS shared folder in the NAS device​

It depends on the NAS device you are using. In the case of Synology DSM, we can following the steps below:

  1. Open the Synology DSM web interface.
  2. Go to Control Panel > Shared Folder.
  3. Click Create to create a new shared folder. (e.g., Docker)
  4. Go to File Station and create a subfolder in the shared folder. (e.g., Docker/rpi)
  5. Go to Control Panel > File Services > NFS and enable the NFS service.
  6. Go to Control Panel > Shared Folder > Edit > NFS Permissions > Create to add the NFS permission for the shared folder.

Create a directory to mount the shared folder​

In the Linux machine, create a directory to mount the shared folder. For example:

sudo mkdir ~/Docker

Mount the shared folder​

/etc/fstab is a system file that contains information about filesystems and how they should be mounted. We can add an entry to the fstab file to mount the shared folder automatically.

proc            /proc           proc    defaults          0       0
# ... others
192.168.0.206:/volume1/Docker/rpi /home/user-name/Docker nfs defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
# a swapfile is not a swap partition, no line here
#   use  dphys-swapfile swap[on|off]  for that

Ready to go