vagrant/website/docs/source/v2/synced-folders/nfs.html.md

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NFS - Synced Folders	syncedfolder-nfs

NFS

In some cases the default shared folder implementations (such as VirtualBox shared folders) have high performance penalties. If you're seeing less than ideal performance with synced folders, NFS can offer a solution. Vagrant has built-in support to orchestrate the configuration of the NFS server on the host and guest for you.

Windows users: NFS folders do not work on Windows hosts. Vagrant will ignore your request for NFS synced folders on Windows.

Prerequisites

Before using synced folders backed by NFS, the host machine must have nfsd installed, the NFS server daemon. This comes pre-installed on Mac OS X, and is typically a simple package install on Linux.

Additionally, the guest machine must have NFS support installed. This is also usually a simple package installation away.

If you're using the VirtualBox provider, you'll also need to make sure you have a private network set up. This is due to a limitation of VirtualBox's built-in networking. With VMware, you do not need this.

Enabling NFS Synced Folders

To enable NFS, just add the type: "nfs" flag onto your synced folder:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  # ...

  config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", type: "nfs"
end

If you add this to an existing Vagrantfile that has a running guest machine, be sure to vagrant reload to see your changes.

NFS Synced Folder Options

NFS synced folders have a set of options that can be specified that are unique to NFS. These are listed below. These options can be specified in the final part of the config.vm.synced_folder definition, along with the type option.

• nfs_export (boolean) - If this is false, then Vagrant won't modify your /etc/exports automatically and assumes you've done so already.

• nfs_udp (boolean) - Whether or not to use UDP as the transport. UDP is faster but has some limitations (see the NFS documentation for more details). This defaults to true.

• nfs_version (string | integer) - The NFS protocol version to use when mounting the folder on the guest. This defaults to 3.

Root Privilege Requirement

To configure NFS, Vagrant must modify system files on the host. Therefore, at some point during the vagrant up sequence, you may be prompted for administrative privileges (via the typical sudo program). These privileges are used to modify /etc/exports as well as to start and stop the NFS server daemon.

If you don't want to type your password on every vagrant up, Vagrant uses thoughtfully crafted commands to make fine-grained sudoers modifications possible to avoid entering your password.

Below, we have a couple example sudoers entries. Note that you may have to modify them slightly on certain hosts because the way Vagrant modifies /etc/exports changes a bit from OS to OS.

For OS X, sudoers should have this entry:

Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_EXPORTS_ADD = /usr/bin/tee -a /etc/exports
Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_NFSD = /sbin/nfsd restart
Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_EXPORTS_REMOVE = /usr/bin/sed -E -e /*/ d -ibak /etc/exports
%admin ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: VAGRANT_EXPORTS_ADD, VAGRANT_NFSD, VAGRANT_EXPORTS_REMOVE

For Linux, sudoers should look like this:

Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_EXPORTS_ADD = /usr/bin/tee -a /etc/exports
Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_NFSD_CHECK = /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server status
Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_NFSD_START = /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server start
Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_NFSD_APPLY = /usr/sbin/exportfs -ar
Cmnd_Alias VAGRANT_EXPORTS_REMOVE = /bin/sed -r -e * d -ibak /etc/exports
%sudo ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: VAGRANT_EXPORTS_ADD, VAGRANT_NFSD_CHECK, VAGRANT_NFSD_START, VAGRANT_NFSD_APPLY, VAGRANT_EXPORTS_REMOVE