The Network File System (NFS) is a distributed filesystem that
provides transparent access to files and directories that are shared
by remote systems. It enables you to centralize the administration
of these files and directories. NFS provides a single copy of the
directory that can be shared by all the systems on the network, instead
of duplicating common directories, such as /usr/local on each system.
How NFS works |
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The NFS environment consists of the following components:
The NFS services is a collection of daemons and kernel components,
and commands that enable systems with different architectures running
different operating systems to share filesystems across a network.
The physical location of the filesystem does not affect the NFS services.
The NFS services enable you to place a copy of the filesystem on an
NFS server and allow all other systems, or a subset of systems in
the network to access it.
Filesystems that are shared between an NFS server and an NFS
client across a network are known as NFS filesystems. The shared filesystem
can refer to an entire file hierarchy, or a single file.
In the NFS context, a system that shares its filesystems over
a network is known as a server, and a system that mounts and accesses
these shared filesystems is known as a client. The NFS service enables
a system to access a filesystem located on a remote system.
Once the filesystem is shared by a server, it can be accessed
by a client. Clients access files on the server by mounting the shared
filesystem. For users, these mounted filesystems appear as a part
of the local filesystem.
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