NFS (Network File System) (Linktionary term)

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NFS (Network File System)

Note: Many topics at this site are reduced versions of the text in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications." Search results will not be as extensive as a search of the book's CD-ROM.

NFS is a client/server distributed file service that provides transparent file-sharing network environments. NFS was originally designed by a small team at Sun Microsystems in the 1980s, but it is now an open Internet protocol. It was defined by RFC 1094 (version 2) and updated with RFC 1813 (version 3) in 1995. NFS is now a set of X/Open specifications (defined as X/Open90 and X/Open91). The AFS (Andrew File System) is a version of NFS.

This topic continues in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications."

The following RFCs describe NFS. Also refer to the IETF Network File System Version 4 (nfsv4) Working Group, which is advancing the NFS technology.

RFC 1094 (NFS: Network File System Protocol Specification. Sun Microsystems, March 1989)

RFC 1813 (NFS Version 3 Protocol Specification, June 1995)

RFC 2054 (WebNFS Client Specification, October 1996)

RFC 2055 (WebNFS Server Specification, October 1996)

RFC 2224 (NFS URL Scheme, October 1997)

RFC 2623 (NFS Version 2 and Version 3 Security Issues, June 1999)

RFC 2624 (NFS Version 4 Design Considerations, June 1999)

RFC 2755 (Security Negotiation for WebNFS, January 2000)

RFC 3010 (NFS Version 4 Protocol, December 2000)