UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello, I have a question regarding ACLs and their availability across different Unix platforms via NFS share.

If I have an AIX/FreeBSD/Solaris/HP-UX client that has an nfs share from a different system mounted on it, will the ACLs on the nfs share be processed properly?

My guess is that as long as the both systems can support ACLs, then they will be processed properly, but I do not know if POSIX ACLs can be read properly if the two systems are different operating systems.

EDIT: This quote from this site says that the ACLs should be read if the two filesystems both support ACLs. I just wasn't sure if that applied to all of AIX/FreeBSD/Solaris/HP-UX

Also I have the same question, but with NFSv4 ACLs. From what I understand, Solaris ZFS and AIX jfs2 with extended attributes both support nfsv4 ACLs. If I mount one system's filesystem on the other, will the nfs4 acls be present on the second machine?

Last question: I know that it will work for Solaris 10/11 NFS4, per documentation. I have not tried, so I cannot comment how well it behaves.

There are problems with ACL's across platforms:
the uid has to match numerically
the gid has to match numerically
the NSF mount has to support the ACL operations, e.g., if the ACL grants write, but the remote file system is read-only then the ACL can not be honored.
See:
http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/ar01s06.html

If you are going across all of the platforms you mentioned - this will go beyond a nightmare to keep consistent and to maintain. On one large multiuser system ACL's are a pain in the butt. My opinion. If you can live without them do so.

I also think you are asking a hypothetical question. Even high-level IT managers know better than to have different major mission critical systems running on the number of platforms you mention. There is enough windows/UNIX/Linux chaos without adding to it.

Thank you for the response. Everything I've read seems to imply complications when dealing with multiple operating systems and acl/nfs protocols. I will have to do some more research...
I hope you are right, I am waiting to hear back from some of my higher ups about this