Problem with exporting/firewall , RPC: No route to host

[pinguscot]

Hi,
I installed Fedora Core 2 on a computer from which I want to export a file system to a working NFS group. I found that I cannot make it mountable on any clients. With the same settings it was fine in RH 8 and 9.

When runnig "rpcinfo -p" from another machine in the system i get:
"rpcinfo: can't contact portmapper: RPC: Remote system error - No route to host"
reading 'NFS-HOWTO' got me as far as "you are a victim of overzealous firewall'. The HOWTOs I was referred to are not informative enough for me.

As far as I can tell I have no iptables installed.
I think an unhealthy sign is that /proc/fs/nfs/exports is empty save for comments.

Anybody knows how to fix this ? What else should I check ?
How to controllably (preferably) diable the firewall so that what is said in /etc/exports is actually exported ?

[BiOPSY]

Do you have the service portmapper running?
Go to a terminal and type: service portmap start

That may be why the rpcinfo Cant contact portmapper error is occuring.

[pinguscot]

portmapper was running.
locally executed 'rpcinfo -p' gives, whats below, that should be all that is required to get this thing working - but it aint !

program vers proto port
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100024 1 udp 32768 status
100024 1 tcp 32769 status
100007 2 udp 713 ypbind
100007 1 udp 713 ypbind
100007 2 tcp 716 ypbind
100007 1 tcp 716 ypbind
100009 1 udp 773 yppasswdd
391002 2 tcp 32770 sgi_fam
100021 1 udp 32769 nlockmgr
100021 3 udp 32769 nlockmgr
100021 4 udp 32769 nlockmgr
100021 1 tcp 32771 nlockmgr
100021 3 tcp 32771 nlockmgr
100021 4 tcp 32771 nlockmgr
100011 1 udp 943 rquotad
100011 2 udp 943 rquotad
100011 1 tcp 962 rquotad
100011 2 tcp 962 rquotad
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100003 4 udp 2049 nfs
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
100005 1 udp 956 mountd
100005 1 tcp 974 mountd
100005 2 udp 956 mountd
100005 2 tcp 974 mountd
100005 3 udp 956 mountd
100005 3 tcp 974 mountd

[pinguscot]

Well, it got sort of sorted.
Apparently its not so easy to run NFS and firewall at the same time !
To do with ports being allocated automatically and you having to let it know which are needed open.
see: http://www.linuxforum.com/linux-nfs/security.html
For now will hide behind somebody elses firewall - kind of them, but it ought to be easier / possible ! to do.

[crackers]

Why? NFS is not a "secure" protocol and is only intended to be used in a secured environment - like behind firewalls. Sharing disk-access on the internet is basically begging for someone to hack you...