These steps are for configuring an NFS Linux server on Ubuntu.

Install the nfs-kernel-server package.

sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server

Check to see if NFS is running.

sudo systemctl status nfs-kernel-server

Create a directory to serve via NFS.

sudo mkdir -p /srv/nfs

Create an /etc/exports file. In my case, I am serving my /srv/nfs directory to any machine on my network. You may read about the other options online.

# /etc/exports
/srv/nfs 192.168.0.0/24(sync,no_subtree_check,insecure)

Reload the NFS export configuration now that our export is defined.

sudo exportfs -ra

You may disable versions of NFS by editing /etc/default/nfs-kernel-server.

This would disable NFSv3.

RPCMOUNTDOPTS="--manage-gids --no-nfs-version 3"

This would disable NFSv4.

RPCMOUNTDOPTS="--manage-gids --no-nfs-version 4"

Restart the appropriate services to ensure the changes take effect.

sudo systemctl restart nfs-config
sudo systemctl restart nfs-kernel-server

You can grep on rpc.mountd on your server to verify that your configuration is being used.

$ ps ax | grep rpc.mountd
3625 ?      Ss     0:00 /usr/bin/rpc.mountd --manage-gids --no-nfs-version 3

Linux Client

You can use showmount to confirm your client can see the NFS shares.

$ sudo showmount -e 192.168.0.169
Export list for 192.168.0.169:
/srv/nfs 192.168.0.0/24

You can mount the NFS share like so.

sudo mount \
	-t nfs \
	-o vers=4 \
	192.168.0.169:/srv/nfs /mnt/tmp

The vers=4 option is not required, but is helpful in ensuring that the server may have disabled a certain version.

If the server disables version 3 or 4, then the client should be rejected if it attempts to use that version.

See here an example where the client attempts to use an NFS protocol version that has been disabled by the server.

$ sudo mount -t nfs -o vers=3 192.168.0.169:/srv/nfs /mnt/tmp
mount.nfs: Protocol not supported