File sharing. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

Questions about Wi-Fi and other network devices, file sharing, firewalls, connection sharing etc
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
bigal
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 510
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:26 am
Location: Pembrokeshire, South West Wales

File sharing. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

Post by bigal »

I’m starting again and want to share a folder and all its subfolders on one specific machine which runs 24/7 with others on my LAN which should auto mount it when powered up. All machines are running 20.1 Cinnamon with Nemo file manager. My question is which is the ‘best’ approach/method to setting this up. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

There is a huge amount of information about file sharing both on this forum and on the net generally. For the most part Windows is involved and to a lesser degree straight forward Linux to Linux sharing. The vast majority seems to be very out of date though. Over the last couple of weeks I have read so much I am now thoroughly confused and as I have fresh installs on all my machines am asking for opinions as to which is the ‘better’ (subjective I know) way to set out.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Lots of Minty machines but there again I like lamb and I do live in Wales!
Moonstone Man
Level 16
Level 16
Posts: 6078
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 10:17 pm

Re: File sharing. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

Post by Moonstone Man »

bigal wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:27 am ... which is the ‘better’ (subjective I know) way to set out.
If you need to share between Linux and Windows then Samba is the standard way to do it, even though Windows 10 Pro and the enterprise editions support NFS. For just Linux machines, NFS is the standard, and it's fairly straightforward to set up. However I run both NFS and Samba, so there's nothing stopping you from using both if you want. I find NFS to be much faster.
altair4
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 11427
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:27 am

Re: File sharing. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

Post by altair4 »

When you ask a question like that in a Linux forum you will end up with a religious war between the NFS-anons and the samba-nistas.

Try both and determine for yourself which one is better, faster, sexier ....

I can provide some assistance on the samba side of this ... not so much on the NFS side since I haven't used in years. If you already created samba shares on the 24/7 server post the output of the following commands on the server and I can show you how to automount it from the clients:

Code: Select all

testparm -s

Code: Select all

net usershare info --long
Please add a [SOLVED] at the end of your original subject header if your question has been answered and solved.
bigal
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 510
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:26 am
Location: Pembrokeshire, South West Wales

Re: File sharing. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

Post by bigal »

Oh dear. I didn’t mean to start a war!

No altair4. I have not set up any shares yet. I thought I’d ask a simple question first. How wrong can I be. lol
Lots of Minty machines but there again I like lamb and I do live in Wales!
Moonstone Man
Level 16
Level 16
Posts: 6078
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 10:17 pm

Re: File sharing. NFS, CIFS or Samba?

Post by Moonstone Man »

bigal wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:56 am Oh dear. I didn’t mean to start a war!
There'll be no warring from me about this, as with operating systems, it's always horses for courses.
Locked

Return to “Networking”