- This page is about the network file system. For the game series, see Need_for_Speed.
Network File System (NFS) is a protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984 and defined in 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.
Version 2 of the protocol originally used the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and was meant to keep the protocol stateless, with locking (for example) implemented outside of the core protocol. Version 3 introduced support for using the TCP as transport. Several vendors also extended NFSv2 to support TCP as transport. Using TCP as transport made using NFS over a [Wide Area Network|WAN] more feasible (although not necessarily practical).
NFS Version 4 includes performance improvements and introduces 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.
External links
- RFC 3530 - NFS Version 4 Protocol Specification
- RFC 1813 - NFS Version 3 Protocol Specification
- RFC 1094 - NFS Version 2 Protocol Specification