Saving and Opening Configuration Settings

NFS Manager can be used to export the complete NFS configuration of an macOS computer into file. This file can be archived, it can be modified by scripts you may have developed, or it could be transferred to other computers. You can select between a binary format, or XML text in the clear.

Exporting configuration data

Perform the following steps to save the complete NFS configuration of an macOS computer into a file:

1. Ensure that the control window for the correct computer is active.
2. Select the menu item File > Save (⌘ + S), or File > Save as… (⌘ + ⇧ + S) respectively.
3. Specify the desired location and file name, and select with the pop-up button File Format whether you like to save the data in binary form (NFS Configuration) or as XML text (NFS Configuration (XML)).
4. Click the button Export.

In all cases, the complete NFS configuration of the selected computer will be saved. When opening the file later, you can choose that only specific parts of the configuration should be read.

NOTE: NFS Manager saves automount entries independent of their sources. The information from which directory node an automount entry is coming from will not be stored.

The save operation has the characteristics of an export because it converts configuration settings from directory services and the operating system into files which can only be understood by NFS Manager, not by the components that actually use that data. For this reason, autosave and versioning features of macOS cannot be used in this context.

Opening configuration data

If you have an NFS configuration which was saved into a file, you can open it later, loading it onto the same or a different computer. Perform the following steps to load configuration areas from a saved NFS configuration into NFS Manager:

1. Select the menu item File > Open or press the key combination ⌘ + O. Alternatively, you can double-click the icon of the file in the Finder and skip the next step.
2. Navigate to the location of the file and select it.

NFS Manager displays the loaded data in a control window. Please note that the window is not showing a live configuration now, but behaves more like a document window. A note in the lower left corner of the window reads Loaded from file. You can review and edit all settings. You can also save a configuration you have modified.

Import configuration data into the current configuration

If you decide after opening the configuration file, that you like to take over one or all areas of the configuration into the configuration of the current computer, perform the following steps:

1. Click the button Import… at the lower right corner of the document window. A sheet will appear.
2. Use the pop-up button Target computer/node to select the directory node into which automount entries should be restored (if applicable).
3. Select the desired Import mode: You can either Replace the current configuration or Try to merge configuration items if possible. During a replace operation, the data of the respective configuration area will first be completely removed from the selected computer or directory node, then it will be replaced by the data from the opened document. In a merge operation, existing automount and share definitions will be kept and the data from the opened document will be added. Entries will be overwritten only if equally named items exist in the document.
4. At Categories to import, set checkmarks for each configuration area which should be imported. Unchecked items won’t be touched on the current computer.
5. Click the button Import.