Login on NFS share from OSX 10.11, can not choose user

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kimmelim Author

Level 1

8 points

Login on NFS share from OSX 10.11, can not choose user

Hi

I am NOT experienced in this and have tried searching for answers to this with no luck..

If anybody have the patience to aid me a little that would be apreciated!

My issue:

I was trying to get the share working as follows:

Everybody should be able to connect and see/use files in "share 1", but not delete anything. This should require log in by privileged user. Also, everybody should see that the "share 2" exists, but not be able to connect to it to see files/folders inside.

I tried creating some shares and users and groups to test out how the system reacted to the different setting to get to understand the nfs/unix user system. Didn´t really understand this yet, it doesn´t seem to straight forward for the unexperienced..

I could at first see the server when i browsed the "Network" in finder, when i clicked on it i could choose who i would log on as (guest or registered user).

I tried lots of settings on the server side and started too get a little feel of how things where working, but somewhere along the line i must´ve added something to my OSX settings, because suddenly i couldn´t see the server anymore in finder. I tried to connect with the "command+K" option, entered the server adress and folder to mount. This works, but i cant choose user anymore?! And it seems to connect as whatever the server requires to view everything, but not add or delete files or folders.

Where is this setting hidden in OSX? How can i get the option too choose user to logon the server with again?

I even tried changing the user and groups on the share, but it just connects anyway, but only view..

I searched a lot of hours trying to find someone with the same problem, but no luck.. Really have no idea what search phrase i should use to find this kind of issue.

Tried looking into Directory Utlity, no luck, tried too see if there where any settings i´ve changed in NFS manager (I believe it was after this was installed everything got messed up..) but nothing i´ve tried resets this automagical logon to the mounted server share..

I hope i managed to explain myself so that this is understandable?!

Anybody cares to help, in advance:Thank you!! I´m ripping out my hair on this thing..

K

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 21, 2016 4:41 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 22, 2016 2:44 AM in response to kimmelim

NFS is not enabled as standard nor is it visible as an option on an OS X server. It is however possible to manually configure it. (It is also automatically configured on the Mac server for use with NetBoot specifically for that purpose.) Normally AFP or SMB would be better options.

It could be during one of the times you did successfully connect to the NFS server that you told the client Mac to save the login details to the users keychain. This would result in it auto-connecting without showing the options for a username and password thereafter. You could run Keychain Access and look in there for a saved password and if found delete it. Then next time you try connecting it will not be able to auto-connect and you will get asked for the login details.

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Answer 2

kimmelim Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 25, 2016 9:25 AM in response to John Lockwood

Hi

Thanks for your input, i have tried searching in the keychain but am unable to find anything that looks like an NFS password or login..

Where would this normally be located? Login was my guess, but even searching trough system and system roots i cant seem to find it..

Oh, and i am not using a apple server, this is a Freenas machine that i am trying to access from my OSX machine.

Still puzzled over why the possibilty to choose user has "disappeared" somehow..

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Answer 3

erriott

Level 1

4 points

May 1, 2016 6:07 PM in response to kimmelim

To help you understand your issue, there are a few things you need to know about the NFS protocol. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume we are using NFSv3.

NFS clients are granted mount privileges by hostnames, not users. Anyone who can logon to the computer, and has sudo rights to mount, will be able to mount the export.
Once mounted, file/directory permissions will take over. The only thing that will veto file/directory permissions is if the export was mounted 'read-only'
Most NFS servers will squash the root user to a low to no privilege UID/GID after the mount is successful [security reasons]. If root needs access to the export, you must supply the appropriate hostname in the 'root=10.0.0.1' entry of the export.

Here are some helpful commands to run from Terminal:

showmount -e <serverIP> ::: If showmount is enabled on the server, this will give a list of all exports, and what hosts have the right to mount
rpcinfo -p <serverIP> ::: This will send back a list of all ports listening, helping ensure the server is indeed running nfsd.

If you want to mount, I would suggest mounting from the terminal. Here is the syntax for NFSv3:

sudo mount -t nfs -o vers=3 <server_ip>:/path/to/export /local/mount/point

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