NFS And Exportfs

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

While researching some possible quirks with files accessed through NFS, I 
found a few web pages telling me what to do with exportfs.  The same pages 
referenced doing "cat /etc/fs/nfs/exports" to see a list of exported 
directories and their settings.

I have an older system running Mandrake 8.x and it has exportfs and when I do 
"cat /etc/fs/nfs/exports" I get a list of all the exported directories.  On 
my newer system, which is Debian based (running Mepis, but soon to be 
replaced with Sarge), there is no exportfs and no /etc/fs/nfs/exports.  When 
I do an "apt-cache search exportfs" I get no answers.

I have not been able to find any useful info on exportfs, other than the man 
page, that might clue me in as to why exportfs is not included in the NFS 
version I'm using on Debian.  Is there a reason there is no exportfs in the 
Debian package?  Does it make a difference to the kernel that the info 
in /proc/fs/nfs/exports is not there on my Debian system?  (I realize the 
file itself may not be the issue, but if so, it might be that the absence of 
that file indicates something else that is wrong/missing.)

Thanks for any helpful info on this!

Hal