Network File System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:17, 21 October 2004

Revision as of 11:38, 7 November 2004

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'''Network File System''' ('''NFS''') is a protocol originally developed by [[Sun Microsystems]] in [[1984]] and defined in [[Request for Comments|RFC]] 1094, 1813, (3010) and 3530, as a [[file system]] which allows a [[computer]] to access files over a [[network]] as if they were on its local disks.

Versions 2 and 3 of the protocol used the [[User Datagram Protocol]] (UDP) and were meant to keep the protocol [[stateless]], with [[Lock (software engineering)|locking]] (for example) implemented outside of the core protocol. Version 4 includes performance improvements and introduces a [[State (computer science)|stateful]] protocol. It has thus been possible to use NFS over [[Transmission Control Protocol|TCP]] since version 3.

NFS is strongly associated with [[UNIX]] systems, though it can be used on any platform such as [[Apple Macintosh|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.