If youre using the Network File System (NFS) protocol on a UNIX system to communicate with your AS/400, IBM may have a transparent upgrade for you with OS/400 V4R4.
Starting in V4R4, OS/400 will support NFS Version 3.0 protocol as well as Version 2.0 on both the client and the server side. This means that, if the computer exchanging files with your AS/400 is also running NFS V3, OS/400 will automatically provide NFS V3 support when it requests a file operation from an NFS server or when it provides file access to an NFS client.
AS/400 NFS V3 support is transparent, which means that it is negotiated between your AS/400 and the NFS client/server when the NFS connection is made. No additional configuration is necessary to activate NFS V3 support. It is available when you start the V4R4 AS/400 NFS server through the Start NFS Server (STRNFSSVR) green-screen
command or through the NFS configuration and management options in AS/400 Operations Navigator program. Please note, however, that you must have Client Access for Windows 95/NT V3R2 or the new AS/400 Client Access Express for Windows (Express client) to use Operations Navigator to configure AS/400 NFS.
On OS/400 V3R7 and above, IBM supports NFS V2, so the V3 support is only available with OS/400 V4R4.
In addition, IBM is providing NFS support for Supplemental Group IDs so that users authorized to an AS/400 object through a group profile can also access that object in NFS if they are a member of a supplemental group with a matching Group ID on the client NFS system. This gives AS/400 NFS users the same advantage in accessing OS/400 objects that is currently enjoyed by application programs and helps you limit object access by authorizing group profiles (instead of user profiles) to objects.
For more information on AS/400 NFS, see Share Files with UNIX Systems Through AS/400 NFS in the February 1999 issue of Midrange Computing.
Special thanks to Carl Pecinovsky of IBM for his help in gathering information for this article.
Related Materials
Share Files with UNIX Systems Through AS/400 NFS, Carl Pecinovsky, Midrange Computing, February 1999
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