Distributed file systems can be administered in a heterogeneous network with the NFS software product. The term “distributed file systems” means:
You can make local data shareable for processing on remote computers. You can select any parts of the hierarchy of the POSIX file system and make them shareable for remote users. Note, however, that the parts made available in this way must not overlap. The commands for making data shareable and undoing this attribute are share, shareall, unshare and unshareall. The file /etc/dfstab can also be used for this purpose.
When remote users make data shareable, you can mount the files in the POSIX file system on the local computer for processing. The user is not aware that the file system mounted in this way is physically located on a remote computer. The user can work with the files in this file system as if they were located in the local POSIX file system.
You can use the NFS-specific versions of the mount, mountall, umount and umountall commands or the file /etc/vfstab to mount and unmount files made shareable on remote computers.
See the "NFS" [8] manual for more information.