Set up environment

• Authenticate with GCP and set project

gcloud auth login

gcloud config set project <YOUR_PROJECT_ID>

• Set the compute region and zone (Optional)

gcloud config set compute/region us-central1

gcloud config set compute/zone us-central1-a

Create a GCE instance for the NFS server

gcloud compute instances create nfs-server \
    --zone=us-central1-a \
    --machine-type=e2-medium \
    --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
    --image-family=ubuntu-2004-lts \
    --tags=nfs-server

SSH into the GCE instance

gcloud compute ssh nfs-server

Install and configure NFS server (ssh)

• Install NFS server on the VM

sudo apt update

sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server -y

• Create a directory for NFS sharing

sudo mkdir -p /var/nfs/shared

sudo chown nobody:nogroup /var/nfs/shared

sudo chmod 777 /var/nfs/shared

• Configure NFS exports

sudo nano /etc/exports

Copy paste the following line

/var/nfs/shared *(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,no_root_squash)

• Restart NFS service

sudo systemctl restart nfs-kernel-server

Set up firewall rules (gcloud)

• Create a firewall rule

gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-nfs \
    --action=ALLOW \
    --direction=INGRESS \
    --rules=tcp:2049,udp:2049 \
    --source-ranges=0.0.0.0/0 \
    --target-tags=nfs-server

Set up an NFS client to connect to the NFS server

• Create a client instance (optional if testing on GCE)

gcloud compute instances create nfs-client \
    --zone=us-central1-a \
    --machine-type=e2-medium \
    --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
    --image-family=ubuntu-2004-lts

• SSH into the client machine

gcloud compute ssh nfs-client

• Install NFS client tools

sudo apt update

sudo apt install nfs-common -y

• Mount the NFS share

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs/shared

• Replace nfs-server with the external IP of your NFS server (you can find it using gcloud compute instances list) (optional, works well with the instance name)

sudo mount -t nfs nfs-server:/var/nfs/shared /mnt/nfs/shared

• Create files and dirs

/mnt/nfs/shared

Make the NFS mount permanent (optional)

• To make the NFS mount persistent across reboots on the client, edit the /etc/fstab file on the client machine:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Copy paste the following line

nfs-server:/var/nfs/shared /mnt/nfs/shared nfs defaults 0 0

(Optional) Enable more secure access

• Publicly accessible NFS shares are not secure. If you want a secure configuration, consider restricting access to specific IP ranges in the firewall or using VPNs for private access.

gcloud compute firewall-rules update allow-nfs --source-ranges=YOUR_IP_RANGE