AIX

HI guys...

Recently I have a request to share an AIX filesystem to a Windows client.
Unable to use Samba as this is a production server, and IBM Support does ont support as it is a Third Party application.
Not wanting to take the risk, I opt for NFS..

However, reading the pSeries System Admin handbook, I don't seem to understand on how to proceed.

1 - I have a JFS which already been exported in the /etc/exports. Does this consider as a NFS?
2 - Do I need to create a new NFS, and copy over all the data from my current JFS?

Please advice..

If the filesystem is already shared on the AIX side then that's pretty much everything you need (nfsd, mountd and rpcd must be running too).

However, you cannot just mount a NFS in Windows without some kind of additional software. Microsoft provides its own set of tools named "Services For Unix" or "SFU" for short which is used to mount NFS shares.

Does this means, I can't just simply do a map drive on windows pointing to the shared FS on the server?

Unfortunately you can't; not if it's an NFS. Windows does not have a built-in NFS client so you need to install additional software.

Since SFU comes from Microsoft itself (and it's free) it's probably the most widely used client out there.

More info on SFU here: Introduction to Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 3.5

If you could install Samba, your life would be so much easier. I installed Samba on my NIM server and shared out the /home/user directories. I mapped my personal home directory on my NIM server to my "N:\" drive on my windows workstation and it is so nice to drag-and-drop files instead of using an SFTP/FTP client. We haven't had to call IBM for support on it. Besides, you can get most of the support you need for your Samba configuration through this forum.

Yeah, I did install Samba and followed some of the tips provided in the forum and it works perfectly..

Many thanks for the assistance...