Network File System (NFS) is a protocol developed by Sun Microsystems and defined in RFC 1094, 1813, 3010 and 3530, a 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.
The term "network file system" is also often used as a generic term — see file system for other examples.
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This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.