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I have a machine that I need to bridge NFS files to. Can I mount an NFS directory on machine2 from machine1 and then mount the mounted NFS directory on machine2 on machine3 via NFS? Do you see any problems with that? I am basically bridging some subnet domains this way, in a certain fashion. My development machine is on a different and separate (unbridged) than where I would like to use the files, and I would like this machine1(dev machine) -> machine2(passthrough machine) -> machine3(test machine) connection. And no there is no way to move the test machine as it's a chassis :) and it's two buildings away.

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Apr 20 '10 at 17:23

4 Answers

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You CAN re-export an NFS mount.

It is a really REALLY BAD IDEA™. If the first server's export fails, the second machine's export will suddenly lose its contents, and show an empty directory.

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Plus one for the TM superscript :-) – Matt Simmons Apr 20 '10 at 18:56
exclude, for the moment that this is exactly what I am doing in answer to the question I asked here: serverfault.com/questions/89269/… – warren Apr 20 '10 at 19:54
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hrm. My kneejerk reaction is that it sounds like a bad idea, but I can't think of any technical reason that it wouldn't work.

So you're doing this because machine3 is unable to talk to machine1?

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I don't think there is a "technical reason" for this, it's just not the "best practice". Like pointing NS records for domain.com to ns1.domain.com/ns2.domain.com, or mounting NFS and re-sharing it over Samba.... or setting your secondary MX record to the virtual IP of the machine your primary MX points too. While all of that may work in theory AND practice, you're asking for some major headache down the road... and most likely at 3AM. – solefald Apr 20 '10 at 18:14
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I have tried this a long time ago and this does not work. I believe that this is some type of security issue as this could violate the restriction of hosts placed on the exported filesystem.

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it will work just fine.. it's just not a generally recommended thing to do :) – warren Apr 21 '10 at 15:32
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Last I looked (NFS v2,3) pass-through mounts like this are specifically disallowed by the NFS Protocol for security and performance reasons.

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