Sorry, that first change isn't right - I didn't test as properly as I thought. When you specify a dependency like that it add ".service" to the end. Arg. New approach: create a directory /etc/systemd/system/nfsserver.service.d and in there create a file called premount.conf. In the file put two lines: [Unit] Before=remote-fs-pre.target Then "systemctl daemon-reload" and it should all be good. Do also make the change to "umount -at" in /etc/init.d/nfs.