NFS access list problems

[Vernon Schryver]

>      Although the machines are in one another's host tables, if you're
> running the name server, you have to be careful to use the correct
> form of the other machines' names.  Specifically, when authenticating
> potential clients for access, NFS receives the IP address of the potential
> client who is doing the mount; the server part of NFS has to be able to do a
> reverse hostname lookup to obtain the name of the potential client and
> then compare in against the access list in /etc/exports.

Good point, except that the NFS server, running in the kernel does not
do reverse hostname lookups.  You do have to ensure that the hostnames
in your access list are converted by mount into the IP number you want.

>                                                       If named is running,
> the host table is ignored.

With IRIX 3.3, you can have the system look at any or all of YP/NIS,
DNS/named, and /etc/hosts.  Check `man 4 resolver`.

>      If you are running name service, try this.  Run nslookup interactively,
> and type "set query PTR".  Then supply the IP address of one of the
> potential clients.  The hostname that comes back must be the one you use
> in the access list.  

Another, probably easier way to determine what the remote machine thinks
of you is:
	rsh remote env | grep REMOTE
or
	rsh remote 'echo $REMOTEHOST'

This is also useful for getting the right name for .rhosts or hosts.equiv.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs at sgi.com