How NFS Client and Server Products Perform on NT in the Lab
Support for Network File System (NFS) is a key ingredient to implementing a successful, fully integrated UNIX-Windows NT environment. The importance of NFS has attracted the attention of a number of software vendors who have been busily developing NFS server and client products for NT. Only a few NFS products are currently available for NT, but others will come to market during the first half of 1996. (One notable exception to this trend is Process Software. The company has discontinued marketing its Windows NT NFS product.)
So I decided to take a closer look at the leading NFS server and client products for NT. All of these products are implemented as native 32-bit Windows NT software.
The products I ran through our lab this month include DiskShare and PC-NFS from Intergraph Corp., ChameleonNFS32 from NetManage, and BW-Connect NFS Client/Server from Beame & Whiteside Software (recently acquired by Hummingbird Communications).
All these products function on top of Microsoft's Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) stack for Windows NT. This dependency means that you should make sure basic TCP/IP services, such as Telnet and File Transfer Protocol (FTP), work with your target NFS servers and clients before you attempt to install NFS services.
Intergraph DiskShare & PC-NFS
Intergraph Corporation has two separate products that address NFS client/server connectivity in the NT environment: DiskShare (NFS server) and PC-NFS (NFS client). You can purchase these two products separately or as a combination bundle.
Each product is installed via a setup program and includes a remove command so it can be uninstalled. The NT environment must be restarted after each installation. If you install both products, you must restart NT twice. A minimum of printed documentation is provided with these products; more information is available in Help files.
DiskShare
Installation of Intergraph's NFS server product, DiskShare, is simple--other than supplying a license key, you need not enter any configuration information at installation time. Once the product is installed and the underlying services are activated by rebooting the system, you can use DiskShare as is or you can refine security settings and operational parameters through an NFS Administrator applet. Additional applets are provided to monitor current connections and the status of network operations (see Screen 1).
The translation of UNIX users and groups into NT users and groups can be handled in several ways. By default, DiskShare sets up a global permission that is applicable to all UNIX access. If you want tighter control, you can copy a password file (/etc/passwd) and/or group file (/etc/group) to the NT system via FTP. You can then use the NFS Administrator applet to map UNIX users or groups to NT users or groups.
You can control which directories will be available to NFS clients through the NT File Manager just as you do with LAN Manager sharing. When you choose Share As from the Disk menu, DiskShare introduces an interim dialog that allows you to choose between NFS and LAN Manager. If you select NFS, a sharing configuration window similar to the native NT sharing-configuration window is displayed. Sharing is not mutually exclusive between NFS and LAN Manager; the same directory can be made available to clients of both systems.
DiskShare includes a PC-NFS daemon (PCNFSD) service, which allows it to accommodate access from both UNIX NFS clients (trusted hosts) and PC-NFS clients using PCNFSD authentication. This service also supports printing, so PC-NFS clients can mount and access NT printers.
PC-NFS
The client side of Intergraph's NFS offering is PC-NFS. As the name implies, it was developed in cooperation with Sun Microsystems, the creators of PC-NFS for the DOS and Windows operating environments.
Installation of PC-NFS is straightforward, although slightly more interactive than that of DiskShare because you have to define basic information about the NFS server during the installation process. PC-NFS installs a single option in the Control Panel to configure service settings. It also creates a program group that contains the related applets.
PC-NFS is invoked when an NT user logs on. Then, it attempts to connect to the NFS server's PCNFSD so the user can be authenticated. PC-NFS can handle this authentication in two ways: It can prompt the user for a UNIX username/password, or it can pass the NT username/password to the NFS server.
After successful authentication, NFS directories can be mounted as network drives through the NT File Manager or by way of commands issued at the command prompt. At present, PC-NFS does not support printing to NFS printers via PCNFSD, but that feature is under development.
PC-NFS also includes several utilities not related to NFS (see screen 1). These include a graphical TN3270 emulator, a Telnet client, an FTP client, a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server, a Remote Shell (RSH) server, and several utilities to monitor NFS connections and NFS network activities.
[Editor's Note: Intergraph released new versions of both of these products at press time. DiskShare v2.1 and PC-NFS v2.2 offer better performance than the previous releases of these products. Also, PC-NFS v2.2 supports printing from Windows NT clients to NFS-based printers via PCNFSD.]
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