"Ashley T. Howes" ashley@blueskyresearch.net writes:

I was wondering about options to connect 2 Linux boxes together over Ethernet, so I could mount the filesystem of one machine on another. I was wondering what options are open to me to do this? I know of NFS. Are there any systems which can cache the files pulled over the connection, so if the same file is requested twice, it is only pulled over the network once? Do the machines both need IP addresses to do this (either private or real), or are there different way to address the boxes (using the ethernet mac address for example)?

I think most of the "next generation" of network file systems will do the sort of thing you describe, with various other performance caveats (eg it needs a sizeable cache). I'd suggest you start by looking at CODA, but when I last tried this around a year ago it wasn't yet usable.

Any reason for not giving the machines IP addresses? It makes it a lot easier than using the ethernet cards raw.