Summary: How to setup an NFS share on Windows to share data with a linux box.
Date: Around 2014
Refactor: 1 May 2025: Checked links and formatting.

To be able to mount a share from Windows to a Linux box we found that NFS services for Windows were by far the easiest way to go.

• Windows is a Windows Server 2008 R2 edition.
• Linux is a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 edition.

Note: I already did that a long time ago on Windows Server 2003 and AIX. Click here for more info about that.

This is how to install and configure the services:

On the Windows Server 2008 R2:

• Start Server Manager
• Go To Roles
• Click “Add Role Services”
• Select “Services for Network File System”
• Click Close after the installation is done.

Still on the Windows Server:

• Create or go to the folder you want to share with NFS
• Right-click the folder and select properties
• Click on the NFS Sharing tab
• Click on Manage NFS Sharing
• Select the “Share this folder” checkbox
• Keep all settings default and click Permissions
• Click Add
• In the “Add Names” box type the names of the servers that need access. Keep all other settings default and click ok.

After adding the servers that need access, in the “NFS Share Permissions” window select the “All Machines” line and configure the type of access to No Access and click ok, and ok again.
This will give you these settings:

Still on the Windows Server:

• Right click the folder and click on the Security tab
• Click on Edit
• Click on Add
• In the “Select Users…” dialog type “Authenticated Users”, click on “Check Names” and then OK
• Add the write and modify permissions

You're done now on the Windows Server so switch to the Linux box and add the following line to the /etc/fstab file:

nfsserver01:Oracle       /dbbackup               nfs     rw,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,hard,nointr,bg,nfsvers=3,tcp,actimeo=0,timeo=600 0 0

Make sure the mountpoint exists and mount the share like this:

sudo mount /dbbackup/

Now you can write, modify and delete files both ways around.