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NAME

exportfs - maintain list of NFS exported file systems

SYNOPSIS

/usr/sbin/exportfs [-av] [-o options,..] [client:/path ..]
/usr/sbin/exportfs [-rv] [-o options,..] [client:/path ..]
/usr/sbin/exportfs [-av] -u [client:/path ..]
/usr/sbin/exportfs [-v]

DESCRIPTION

The exportfs command is used to maintain the current table of exported file systems for NFS. This list is kept in a separate file named /var/lib/nfs/xtab. Normally, this file is initialized with the list of all file systems named in /etc/exports by invoking exportfs -a, and modified by mountd(8) whenever receiving a mount request from a host that is matched by a network or domain export.

However, administrators can choose to add and delete individual file systems without modifying /etc/exports using exportfs.

OPTIONS

-a
Export or unexport all directories.
-o options,...
Specify a list of export options in the same manner as in exports(5) .
-r
Reexport all directories. It synchronizes /var/lib/nfs/xtab with /etc/exports. It removes entries in /var/lib/nfs/xtab which are deleted from /etc/exports.
-u
Unexport one or more directories.
-v
Be verbose. When exporting or unexporting, show what's going on. When displaying the current export list, also display the list of export options.

DISCUSSION

Exporting Directories

The first synopsis shows how to invoke the command when adding new entries to the export table. When using exportfs -a, all directories in exports(5) are added to xtab and the resulting list is pushed into the kernel.

The host:/path argument specifies the directory to export along with the host or hosts to export it to. All formats described in exports(5) are supported; to export a directory to the world, simply specify /path.

The export options for a particular host/directory pair derive from several sources. The set of default options can be overridden by entries in /usr/etc/exports and /var/lib/nfs/xtab, if they exists. In addition, the administrator may overide any options from these sources using the -o argument which takes a comma-separated list of options in the same fashion as one would specify them in exports(5) . Thus, exportfs can also be used to modify the export options of an already exported directory.

Modifications of the kernel export table used by nfsd(8) take place immediately after parsing the command line and updating the xtab file.

Unexporting Directories

The second synopsis shows how to unexported a currently exported directory. When using exportfs -ua, all entries listed in xtab are removed from the kernel export tables, and the file is cleared. This effectively shuts down all NFS activity.

To remove individial export entries, one can specify a host:/path pair. This deletes the specified entry from xtab and removes the corresponding kernel entry.

Dumping the Export Table

Invoking exportfs without further options shows the current list of exported file systems. When giving the -v option, the list of flags pertaining to each export are shown in addition.

EXAMPLES

The following adds all directories listed in /etc/exports to /var/lib/nfs/xtab and pushes the resulting export entries into the kernel:

# exportfs -a

To export the /usr/tmp directory to host djando, allowing asynchronous writes, one would do this:

# exportfs django:/usr/tmp -o async

If the directory was already exported,

DEPENDENCIES

Exporting to IP networks, DNS and NIS domains does not enable clients from these groups to access NFS immediately; rather, these sorts of exports are hints to mountd(8) to grant any mount requests from these clients. This is usually not a big problem, because any existing mounts are preserved in xtab across reboots.

When unexporting a network or domain entry, any current exports to members of this group are unaffected. The reason for this is that exportfs cannot tell whether these specific exports were created as a result of the group export, or whether they have been exported independently.

SEE ALSO

exports(5) , mountd(8)

AUTHOR

Olaf Kirch, <okir@monad.swb.de>


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