Gateway for NFS acts as a bridge between the server message block (SMB) protocol used by the Windows network and the network file system (NFS) protocol used by the NFS network. With Gateway for NFS, you can create a gateway through which SMB client computers without NFS client software can gain access to NFS file resources. (Because requests from SMB clients are processed through the gateway, however, access is slower than direct access from the client to the NFS network. It is therefore recommended that Windows-based clients requiring frequent access to NFS resources run Client for NFS.)
For file access, Gateway for NFS uses an NFS account on the Windows-based computer to create a validated connection to the NFS server. The server redirects one of its own drives to the NFS volume and shares that drive to other SMB clients. When you share the redirected drive, it becomes like any other shared resource on the computer running Windows NT Server or Windows 2000 Server.
For example, suppose you want to create a gateway from the computer SomeCompany_DataServer (running Gateway for NFS) to the NFS folder: \\NFS4\Server1\Org_Unit.Org\Data volume on the NFS server NFS4. When you activate the gateway, you specify: \\NFS4\Server1\Org_Unit.Org\Data as the NFS resource. You then specify a share name for SMB clients, such as NFS_Data. The SMB clients would then refer to this resource as: \\SomeCompany_DataServer\NFS_Data.
After the gateway connection is established, it is disconnected only if the computer running Windows is turned off, if the administrator disconnects the shared resource or disables the gateway, or if a network problem prevents access to the NFS server. Logging off the computer running Windows does not, by itself, disconnect the gateway.
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