Can I change the name of an NFS export

Solution 1:

What you want is how NFSv4 works. In NFSv4, all the directories exported are from a single pseudo-filesystem where the real directories are mounted with --bind. See the Ubuntu NFSv4 Howto for an example.

Solution 2:

I'm pretty sure NFS does not allow for aliases. Symlinking is probably best, and it'll save you from moving the export as a whole to an illogical location (/target).

The original suggestion here was to symlink /opt/target to /target and then export /target. NFS supports this and I don't know of any good reasons not to use symlinks this way.