NFS vs AFP for home directories

[trondah]

Hey guys.

So, which protocol is the winner for home directories?

From what other discussions I can find on the subject, NFS seems to be the better one, as it will work with fast user switching.

Any opinions?

[Greg Neagle]

The answer, as always, is “it depends”.

NFS pros:
Supported by lots of vendors, therefore more choices
Cross-platform between OS X and Linux/Solaris/etc
Supports fast user switching
NFS cons:
Security model may not fit your environment
Some filesystem attributes not directly supported

AFP pros:
Native Apple solution, so best Apple support
Filesystem attributes closest match for HFS+
Easy to set up and run from Apple hardware
Best support/fit for Portable Home Directories
AFP cons:
More limited support for AFP on non-Apple hardware/OS servers
Not cross-platform
Doesn’t support fast user switching

You’ll have to decide which bits are most important for your environment. NFS homes are a good fit for us, but might be a disaster in a K-12 environment…

-Greg

[trondah]

Interesting points. Could you elaborate on the NFS security model? I though Kerberos was pretty good?

Also, which filesystem attributes aren’t supported?

[trondah]

Yeah Kerberized NFS is just a click away on OD 🙂

The OSX NFS server doesn’t handle resorce forks?

And does it matter if they are split into files?

[kovacm]

Hi,
can someone tell me how to use NFS instead of AFP for home folders?

Thank you!

[Author]

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