AUTH_SYS, idmap, and upgrading from NFSv3

[J. Bruce Fields]

On Sun, Aug 27, 2006 at 11:00:07PM -0400, David Shaw wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Here is my situation: two machines, one a NFS server (running 2.6.17)
> and one a NFS client (running 2.6.12).  I'm currently using NFSv3.
> For various historical reasons, the client machine has many users in
> /etc/passwd that don't exist on the server machine.  In NFSv3, this
> isn't a problem: the server just assigns the proper uid and gid to the
> file locally, and when it is listed on the client, the proper username
> and group shows up.
> 
> In trying to get NFSv4 working, however, I've run into a problem.  I'm
> using AUTH_SYS, and all the users that don't exist on the server show
> up as "nobody" on the client.
> 
> Is there any way, aside from putting all of the usernames from the
> client on the server, to get the right names to appear when listing
> files on the client?

No, unfortunately not.  (Well, you could also switch to using a common
database--nis or ldap--for both, but I'm assuming for your setup adding
the names would be the simpler approach.)

--b.