Sharing Amazon EFS Volumes To Windows

Amazon (as of 2023) does not have a direct driver for EFS volumes for Windows.  If you are using Net-X-Code in a cloud environment we recommend running the Linux version for direct access to the EFS volumes.  For other software [like Adobe/Avid]  that does not run on Linux, you can still access the files on the EFS volume by resharing the mount, internally or externally.  This article explains how to do that.

Re-share EFS via SAMBA

Using the Net-X-Code Linux server, or another EFS attached Linux server, reshare the EFS as a SAMBA share:

• Create an AWS EC2 instance.
• Mount the EFS on the EC2 instance (using mount point IP, ensure same security group)
• Install Samba on EC2 instance
• Create local Samba config entry for EC2 local mount point
• Add security group inbound entry for "SMB" port for client IP.
• Mount EC2 samba share on Windows

Access EFS via Windows Subsystem for Linux

Windows now includes a subsystem that runs Linux at the same time as Windows.  You can use it to mount the EFS volume as a folder accessible to Windows:

• sudo mount -t nfs4 -o rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,hard,timeo=600,retrans=2,noresvport MY_IP_ADDRESS:/ efs
• Create your EFS folder in this location /mnt/wsl
• Mount your EFS using the previous command
• Go to this location \\wsl$ in the File Explorer, and get your Distro's root. In my case, \\wsl$\Ubuntu
• Copy your Distro's path and map it as your new Network Drive in Windows
• Now you can access your EFS from your Network Drive, for example, Z:\mnt\wsl\efs