topic Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2 in Network and Storage Protocols

How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

jon_ — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:10:58 GMT

Hello,

I am attempting to mount an NFS share on a Windows machine. As I understand it, Win2k8 supports NFS. Based on a post from 2008, it seems I somehow need to map a user to root, howerver, it does not appear that the username mapping service is supported anylonger. I followed the instructions in this post "NFS Mounts with Windows hosts" however, I'm not sure the instructions "Services for NFS Step-by-Step Guide for Windows Server 2008" apply as it seems to want an entirely different NFS client to be installed, also in step 4 of the section "Configuration for Anonymous NFS access:" the policy "access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users." does not exist, so I'm unable to follow these instructions. This article indicates you can configure user mapping, if your NFS server is connected to AD (it is not and we do not have any plans to hook our NetApp device up to AD). The Windows server is connected to our AD infrastructure.

I have exported the share to the full /24.

I do know that the share is active and mountable from a linux server:

[root@foobar ~]# mount
10.0.70.240:/netappshare on /netappshare type nfs (rw,addr=10.0.70.240)
[root@showmount ~]# showmount -e 10.0.70.240
Export list for 10.0.70.240:
/ (everyone)

(interestingly, showmount doesn't show any exports... but it does mount so I'm not sure if that means anything...)

However, when I attempt to mount the same share on my windows server, I get the everhelpful "network path was not found":

C:\Users\domainadmin>showmount -e 10.0.70.240
Exports list on 10.0.70.240:
/                                  All Machines
C:\Users\domainadmin>mount 10.0.70.240:/netappshare *
Network Error - 53

Type 'NET HELPMSG 53' for more information.

C:\Users\domainadmin>net helpmsg 53

The network path was not found.

I'm sure it's a PEBCK error, but I'm just not sure where to go from here... it seems like mounting an NFS share should be relatively straightforward so I'm probably missing something obvious.

I'd appreciate any ideas as I'm stumped.

Thanks,

-J

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

aborzenkov — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 18:43:35 GMT

I assume you are using C-Mode. Windows NFSv3 clients are supported starting with cDOT 8.2.3 and require explicit SVM configuration. See 8.2.3 release notes for details.

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

jon_ — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:08:30 GMT

I believe this is the document being referred to

Is there no way to enable NFS via ONCOMMAND?

What do these commands do? What is ejukebox and what are the implications of disabling connection drop?

These instructions are concerning without any kind of explanation as to what these commands do.

How did you know NFS instructions were buried in the Release notes? Seems like a rather obscure place to hide information like this. Thanks for the tip!

EDIT: The Documentation for the vserver nfs modify command does not clear this up at all either:

[-enable-ejukebox {true|false}] - Enable NFSv3 EJUKEBOX error (privilege: advanced)

This optional parameter specifies whether EJUKEBOX errors are enabled for NFSv3. The default setting is true at the time of creation.

[-v3-connection-drop {enabled|disabled}] - Enable the Dropping of a Connection When an NFSv3 Request is Dropped (privilege: advanced)

This optional parameter specifies whether NFS v3 connection drop is enabled. The default setting is enabled at the time of creation.

EDIT 2:

Unfortunately it seems these instructions don't work either:

nacluster::> vserver nfs modify -vserver WinNFSTestSVM -v3-ms-dos-client enabled

Error: invalid argument "-v3-ms-dos-client"

nacluster::> vserver nfs modify -vserver WinNFSTestSVM -enable-ejukebox false -v3-connection-drop disabled

Error: invalid argument "-enable-ejukebox"

nacluster::>

So I guess the answer is NetApp doesn't support NFS on windows? (Admittedly I don't know what version of cDOT I'm on, so maybe it's just too old... but based on the posts from 2008 and 2010 I would think I should be able to get NFS working...)

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

aborzenkov — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 07:39:54 GMT

These are advanced level options. You need "set -privilege advanced" before.

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

wbatista — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 21:03:30 GMT

Hello jon_ where you able to run these commands safely?

What was the result?

If you can post an update will be really helpful.

Thanks,

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

jon_ — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 21:12:25 GMT

>> Hello jon_ where you able to run these commands safely?

>> What was the result?

Hi,

No, you can't mount NFS in windows with older versions of NetApp. We're looking at upgrading to the most recent version (or at least ONTAP 8.2.3) and testing again.

"set -privilege advanced" doesn't help in pre 8.2.3 versions.

As far as I can tell there is no Windows NFS support pre ONTAP 8.2.3.

Hope that helps. Let me know if I can provide any further information.

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

wbatista — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 11:14:45 GMT

Thanks jon_.

I guess I will have to wait for 8.2.3 to do some tests also.

Re: How do I mount an NFS share on Windows 2008 R2

netapp58 — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 11:32:12 GMT

Any updates on this?

In the meantime 8.3.1 is out and there NFS mounts with Windows are supported.