Network File System (NFS) is a protocol developed by Sun Microsystems and defined in RFC 1094, a network file system which allows a computer to access files over a network as if they were on its local disks. NFS is implemented using a connectionless protocol (UDP) in order to make it stateless.
NFS is strongly associated with UNIX systems, with SMB, a similar protocol, used to implement a network file system under Microsoft Windows.
"Network File System" is also often used as a generic term - see File system for other examples.
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