Network File System
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Network File System (NFS) is a protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984 and defined in RFCs 1094, 1813, (3010) and 3530, as a file system which allows a computer to access files over a network as easily as if they were on its local disks.
Version 2 of the protocol originally operated entirely over UDP and was meant to keep the protocol stateless, with locking (for example) implemented outside of the core protocol.
Version 3 introduced support for using TCP as transport. While it is true several vendors had already extended NFSv2 to support TCP as transport, Sun Microsystems introduced TCP as a transport for NFS at the same time it introduced Version 3. Using TCP as transport made using NFS over a WAN more feasible (although not necessarily practical).
Version 4, influenced by AFS, includes performance improvements, mandates strong security, and introduces a stateful protocol.
NFS is strongly associated with UNIX systems, though it can be used on any platform such as Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The server message block (SMB), a similar protocol, is the equivalent implementation of a network file system under Microsoft Windows.
The term "network file system" is also often used as a generic term — see file system for other examples.
External links
- The Linux Documentation Project (http://www.tldp.org/) has several howto articles on NFS in different formats.
- Linux NFS Overview, FAQ and HOWTO Documents (http://nfs.sourceforge.net/)
- RFC 3530 - NFS Version 4 Protocol Specification
- RFC 1813 - NFS Version 3 Protocol Specification
- RFC 1094 - NFS Version 2 Protocol Specification
- RFC 2000de:Network File System
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