The Network File System reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Network File System

Network File System (NFS) is a protocol developed by Sun Microsystems and defined in RFC 1094, 1813, 3010 and 3530, a network file system which allows a computer to access files over a network as if they were on its local disks.

The original versions 2 and 3 of the protocol used User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and were meant to keep the protocol stateless, with locking (for example) implemented outside of the core protocol. Version 4 included performance improvements and introduced 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.

A "network file system" is also often used as a generic term — see File system for other examples.

External links

• RFC1813 - NFS Version 3 Protocol Specification
• RFC3010 - NFS Version 4 Protocol

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