7 Steps for Setting up a CentOS 7 NFS Server from Scratch

Steps:-

1. Setup Network & Hostname

2. Download all required packages (nfs-utils & nfs-utils-lib)

3. Create & Format the Partition (use parted for >2TB shares)

4. Configure the share point, mount the partition & configure auto mount

5. Append /etc/exports & /etc/fstab

6. Configure Firewall to allow NFS service

7. Restart Services & Reboot the Server.

I used the below commands (parted) to setup a 5TB NFS share on CentOS 7 Kernel 3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64

Configure Network & Hostname

vi /etc/sysconfig/network

NETWORKING=yes

HOSTNAME=newHostName

vi /etc/hosts 

127.0.0.1 newHostName

127.0.0.1   localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4

::1         localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6

and then rebooting the system

Download all packages for NFS

Download all required packages

yum update

yum -y install nfs-utils

yum -y install nfs-utils-lib

yum install  0 0

With Fdisk

Fdisk used to create a new partition on new device sda/sdb

Format the new xfs file system using

# mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb1

Mount the xfs file system

# mkdir /mnt/db

# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/db

# mount | grep /dev/sdb1

Create the GPT partition table 

mklabel gpt

Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue?

Yes/No? yes

(parted) unit GB

With Parted

Check partition using fdisk -l

Run parted utility

Select /dev/sdb

Create the partition

mkpart primary 0.0GB 4000.8GB

Quit parted now

Create the filesystem

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Create Share point

mkdir /home/share

Change the permissions

chmod -R 777 /home/share/

Mount the partition

mount /dev/sdb1 /home/share

Automounting NFS Shares on Server Reboot:

Append text to the end of /usr/lib/systemd/system/nfs-idmap.service

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Append text to the end of /usr/lib/systemd/system/nfs-lock.service

[Install]

WantedBy=nfs.target

Add the partition to /etc/fstab and mounting it

/dev/sdb1              /home/share        ext4    defaults        0 0

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/fstab

#

# /etc/fstab

# Created by anaconda on Wed Jul  5 17:25:55 2017

#

# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'

# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info

#

/dev/mapper/cl-root     /                       xfs     defaults        0 0

UUID=f2c3a44a-621a-4dd9-b86d-cf5f2fdee4a0 /boot                   xfs     defaults        0 0

/dev/mapper/cl-home     /home                   xfs     defaults        0 0

/dev/mapper/cl-swap     swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

/dev/sdb1 /home/share ext4 defaults 0 0

[root@localhost ~]#

Append /etc/exports

vi /etc/exports

/home/share "192.168.0.0/16"(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,no_root_squash)

Configure Firewall to allow NFS service

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone public --add-service mountd

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone public --add-service rpc-bind

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone public --add-service nfs

firewall-cmd --reload

Restart Services

systemctl enable rpcbind

systemctl enable nfs-server

systemctl enable nfs-lock

systemctl enable nfs-idmap

systemctl start rpcbind

systemctl start nfs-server

systemctl start nfs-lock

systemctl start nfs-idmap

Reboot the host

Shutdown -r now