A network of Linux, Macintosh and other types of Linux/Unix based operating systems can share files with each other using a protocol called Network File System (NFS). WACS is completely compatible with this process so long as the corresponding database is shared as well. It is also perfectly possible to set up WACS to manage a collection housed on a separate network attached storage (NAS) device so long as it supports NFS. With these being available from under 70 euro (US$100), it makes a very effective way to house your WACS-managed media collection.

To allow another machine to access the WACS collection archive directly from your web server, you need to edit the /etc/exports file on the WACS server system. As with the forced allocation of a fixed IP address for the server system itself, you may wish to do the same for the laptop to ensure that it always receives the same local name and address for security reasons. Assuming you've named your laptop fawn, the /etc/exports file would then read (on a Linux server) something like this:

/home/wacs	fawn(rw,no_root_squash,async)

The nfs server process would then need to be started; on most linux distributions if the file /etc/exports exists and has entries in it, it will be automatically started on boot. It can usually be manually started too with the command /etc/init.d/nfs start. On the client machine, in this example the laptop called fawn, you merely add an extra line into the /etc/fstab file that reads:

nemesis:/home/wacs	/home/wacs	nfs    defaults    0 0 

Of course these commands are subject to various differences between machines based upon dialects of the commands, the actual locations and the specific names of the machines and file systems. Read the appropriate HowTo Documents and manual pages for your operating system version for more details.