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Set Up NFS Sever in Docker

This document will introduce to set up a NFS server in Docker container and use another Docker container to act as a Client to test this NFS server.

To set up a NFS server in your Host, you can check NFS server installed and configured.

Start Up NFS Server​

Use docker image gists/nfs-server to start up a NFS server container.

In OSX, it's critical to use volume mount and avoid using bind mount as we mentioned above.

In Linux, it's okay to use either volume mount or bind mount.

docker run --rm -d \
    --name nfs \
    --privileged \
    -p 2049:2049 \
    -v /tmp/volume:/nfs-share \
    -e NFS_DIR=/nfs-share \
    -e NFS_OPTION="rw,fsid=0,async,no_subtree_check,no_auth_nlm,insecure,no_root_squash" \
    gists/nfs-server
note

Before we use an old nfs server image itsthenetwork/nfs-server-alpine which was not maintained more than 4 years and not supported natively in platform linux/arm/v6.

docker run -it --rm \
    --name nfs \
    --privileged \
    -v /tmp/volume:/nfs-share \
    -e SHARED_DIRECTORY=/nfs-share \
    -p 2049:2049 \
    itsthenetwork/nfs-server-alpine:latest
note

In OSX, due to the docker desktop itself is running in VM, it will cause some error like Operation not supported when binding a local file folder via bind mount even you set 777 mask on the folder. So it's recommended to use volume to bind to /mnt in Samba server in OSX.

Furthermore, the Samba server will log such message: error reading meta xattr: Not supported.

Get the ip address of the NFS server, which will be used later to connect the NFS server when mounting in a Docker container client. If you only want to mount the NFS server from the host, you can just know the ip address of your host.

docker inspect \
    -f '{{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' \
    nfs

Here the output is

172.17.0.2

Use NFS Client in Docker​

Let's make use of a Docker container to act in a NFS client to access shared data in the running-up NFS server.

note

run container as root by option --privileged or --cap-add SYS_ADMIN when permissions denied inside the container:

docker run -it --rm --privileged busybox sh

Inside the container:

note

Due to the fsid=0 parameter set in the /etc/exports file, there's no need to specify the folder name when mounting from a client. For example, this works fine even though the folder being mounted and shared is /nfs-share:

# In the container

mkdir /mnt
# nfs v4
mount -v -o vers=4,loud 172.17.0.2:/ /mnt

# create a file to test
echo "some text here" > /mnt/file1.txt

Then go to the Host to list directory /data/volume/test, where you will find the file1.txt is sitting.

# In the host
cat /data/volume/test/file1.txt

Use NFS Client With Volume Mount in Docker​

  1. Create a NFS volume in Docker
docker volume create --driver local \
    --opt type=nfs \
    --opt o=addr=172.17.0.2,nfsvers=4 \
    --opt device=:/ \
    nfs-volume
docker inspect nfs-volume
  1. Run the container with the created volume nfs-volume.
docker run -it --rm \
    --privileged \
    --name nfs-test \
    -v nfs-volume:/mnt \
    busybox \
    sh

Alternative, you can use the combined one command which will create a volume nfsvolume,

docker run -it --rm \
    --privileged \
    --name nfs-test \
    --mount 'type=volume,source=nfsvolume,volume-driver=local,volume-opt=type=nfs,volume-opt=device=:/,"volume-opt=o=addr=172.17.0.2,rw,nfsvers=4,async",target=/mnt' \
    busybox \
    sh

Setup a NFS Server and Mount NFS Volume int Docker Compose​

About NFS Options​

Understanding the /etc/exports File – The Geek Diary