What Is a Network File System?

Network file system, English Network File System (NFS), is a UNIX pressentation layer protocol developed by SUN Corporation, which enables users to access files elsewhere on the network as if they were using their own computer. ^[1]

NFS is based on

The Network File System (NFS) is a network abstraction on top of the file system that allows remote clients to access it over the network in a similar way to the local file system. Although NFS is not the first such system, it has evolved and evolved into the most powerful and widely used network file system in UNIX systems. NFS allows common file systems to be shared among multiple users and provides the advantage of data concentration to minimize the storage space required. ^[3]

(1) Provide transparent file access and file transfer; ^[2]

NFS (Network File System, Network File System) is one of the current mainstream heterogeneous platform shared file systems. It is mainly used in the UNIX environment. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems, it now supports file sharing between different types of systems through the network. It is widely used in FreeBSD, SCO, Solaris and other heterogeneous operating system platforms, allowing a system to share directories and files with others on the network . By using NFS, users and programs can access files on remote systems as if they were local files, enabling each node of the computer to use online resources as easily as using local resources. In other words, NFS can be used to remotely access and share network files in different types of computers, operating systems, network architectures, and transport protocols. ^[4]

NFS allows a calculated client-server model. The server implements a shared file system and the storage to which the client is connected. Client implementation

From the client's perspective, the first operation in NFS is called mount. Mount stands for mounting a remote file system into the local file system space. The process starts with the mount (Linux

The two latest versions of NFS (4 and 4.1) are the most interesting and important for NFS. Let's look at some of the most important aspects of NFS innovation. ^[3]

Although NFS is the most popular network file system on UNIX and Linux systems, it is certainly not the only option. On Windows systems, Server Message Block [SMB] (also known as CIFS) is the most widely used option (just as Linux supports SMB, Windows also supports NFS). ^[3]

One of the latest distributed file systems, also supported in Linux, is Ceph. Ceph is designed as a fault-tolerant distributed file system with a UN compatible Portable Operating System Interface (POS). You can learn more about Ceph in Resources. ^[3]

Other examples include OpenAFS, an open source version of Andrew's distributed file system (from Carnegie Mellon and IBM), GlusterFS, a universal distributed file system focusing on scalable storage, and Lustre, a massively parallel distributed file focusing on cluster computing system. All are open source software solutions for distributed storage. ^[3]