Inside Linux Chapter 12. (Web hosting comparison) Network File Service (NFS)
Inside Linux Chapter 12. Network File Service (NFS) The Network File System (NFS) is a popular and widely used protocol for file sharing. Many organizations use NFS to serve up users’ home directories. This allows users to roam about and use more than one machine; thus, each user will have access to his or her home directory. Overview As mentioned previously, NFS is a protocol for the sharing of files. NFS was originally developed and released in 1985 by Sun Microsystems. Sun Microsystems advertises an installed base of eight million NFS systems. NFS has come to be a very robust solution and runs on many platforms. The growth of NFS in the PC arena the last few years is attributed to the growth of Linux and other PC-based operating systems. NFS is also enjoying fast growth in the workstation and server markets. Some of the highlighted features of NFS are the following: NFS maintains the scalability required to support small to large enterprise networks. An automatic mounting facility provides continuous and transparent access to files. NFS Version 3, which is a new version of the NFS protocol, is designed to increase scalability and performance. Quick access to information is provided by local disk caching. NFS implements centralized administration, thereby reducing the effort required to perform your routine administration tasks. Some NFS systems provide support for diskless and dataless client systems. NFS has an open architecture. However, this creates security risks -this architecture is understood by crackers. NFS is implemented as a client/server architecture supporting the sharing of files. The NFS system is available on a wide range of heterogeneous platforms, from mainframes to the PC. Another plus is that NFS is an open standard. This means that you do not have to worry about proprietary mechanisms or rely on a single vendor to provide products, updates, or technical support. NFS is even defined in a number of RFCs and is part of X/Open Common Application Environment. You can obtain the source code for NFS and can license it from SunSoft. You can also obtain the written specification for free by downloading it from the Internet. The current advertisement says that more than 300 organizations have licensed NFS technology. Many products to enhance NFS are available for most operating system platforms. Table 12.1 lists some of the vendors that provide solutions for NFS. When a directory (or file) is shared using NFS, that directory (or file) appears to be a part of the local filesystem, rather than the one on the remote system. NFS is not restricted to large networks within an organization. You could set up your own network of Linux machines, using NFS to share files and directories. For example, you might have your main server located in a large closet, attic room, or basement. Using NFS, you can share all the files and directories that exist on that server to all the other machines in your house. The files and directories appear to be local to the machine you are using, rather than on the remote server. Of course, NFS must reach across the network to obtain information on the files, but all this trafficking is done transparently. Although NFS can be used with various networks, it is optimally designed for the TCP/IP protocol. NFS is found more often on networks running TCP/IP, mainly because of the popularity of TCP/IP today. But because NFS is such a popular file-sharing protocol, implementations of it can be found on heterogeneous operating systems. Refer to Table 12.1 to review the list of vendors and operating systems. page 210
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