Can FreeNAS share a remote NFS share?

[Sparki]

I would like FreeNAS to provide CIFs shares in a branch office from an underlying remote NFS share.
Example:
FreeNAS server and client computers a located in branch office B.
Large storage server is located in head office A.
Sites are connected over WAN via VPN network.

I would like to install FreeNAS with minimum resources (small boot drive/minimum memory) in branch office B and have it connect as a client to the large NFS server in main office A. I then want FreeNAS to provide CIF shares to the local windows pc's in the branch office using the remote NFS share storage.

Leaving aside the performance issues with shares over the WAN is it possible for FreeNAS to be configured like this??

Cheers.

 

[anodos]

Using samba to share an NFS import is not a good idea. Volker Lendecke said in a samba mailing list thread:

"Running Samba on NFS imports is a really bad idea. At least every month people report strange lockups, timeouts and other weird things on this list that can be attributed to NFS imports."

"Mostly it is locking problems. Some daemons not started, daemons not 100% working right, etc. Then it is also a big performance drain. Sending data over the net twice without proper caching is really subobptimal. Then, potentially not all features fully supported (EAs, ACLs, etc). This is just a pain in the neck. "

I think he summed up the problem nicely. :)

The problems partway stem from NFS not being a posix-compliant filesystem. If you decide to pursue this, then you'll need to disable POSIX locking in samba, zfsacl, and anything that touches EAs. Note that this will mostly break file locking.

Since you already have a site-to-site VPN, why not have users connect to the server at the main office directly?

 

[Sparki]

Thanks for the reply. Looks like it might be too problematic. The reason for not sharing directly from the main office was simply because I can't provide the CIF's Netbeui or "Network Neighborhood" name resolution over layer 3. It requires layer 2 and it will make it nice and simple for the client pc setup if the Network Neighborhood displays correctly.
I'm thinking I might just need to add some storage to the FreeNAS in the branch office and then rsync offsite. Problem is I can only attach a maximum of 2TB to the FreeNAS in the branch office (without getting more complicated). I would need to regularly rsync data off to the main office storage to maintain enough space locally.

From memory the last time I used FreeNAS the rsync gui didn't provide much in the way of error reporting and confirmation that rsync was working. Has rsync reporting been improved upon in the reason release? Do you feel it's more reliable now?

Cheers.

 

[anodos]

Thanks for the reply. Looks like it might be too problematic. The reason for not sharing directly from the main office was simply because I can't provide the CIF's Netbeui or "Network Neighborhood" name resolution over layer 3. It requires layer 2 and it will make it nice and simple for the client pc setup if the Network Neighborhood displays correctly.

I believe you can set up a wins server in the home office and specify that the VPN client use it to resolve netbios names.

 

[Sparki]

I believe you can set up a wins server in the home office and specify that the VPN client use it to resolve netbios names.

Thanks, I will look into this. I've been told that routing netbios doesn't work well but I've not looked into the WINS server before. Cheers.