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NFS(5)                        File Formats Manual                       NFS(5)

NAME
       nfs - fstab format and options for the nfs file systems

SYNOPSIS
       /etc/fstab

DESCRIPTION
       NFS  is  an  Internet  Standard protocol created by Sun Microsystems in
       1984. NFS was developed to allow file sharing between systems  residing
       on  a local area network.  Depending on kernel configuration, the Linux
       NFS client may support NFS versions 3, 4.0, 4.1, or 4.2.

       The mount(8) command attaches a file system to the system's name  space
       hierarchy  at  a  given mount point.  The /etc/fstab file describes how
       mount(8) should assemble a system's file name  hierarchy  from  various
       independent  file  systems  (including  file  systems  exported  by NFS
       servers).  Each line in the /etc/fstab file  describes  a  single  file
       system,  its  mount  point, and a set of default mount options for that
       mount point.

       For NFS file system mounts, a line in the /etc/fstab file specifies the
       server  name,  the path name of the exported server directory to mount,
       the local directory that is the mount point, the type  of  file  system
       that is being mounted, and a list of mount options that control the way
       the filesystem is mounted and how the NFS client behaves when accessing
       files on this mount point.  The fifth and sixth fields on each line are
       not used by NFS, thus conventionally each contain the digit  zero.  For
       example:

               server:path   /mountpoint   fstype   option,option,...   0 0

       The  server's  hostname  and  export pathname are separated by a colon,
       while the mount options are separated by commas. The  remaining  fields
       are separated by blanks or tabs.

       The server's hostname can be an unqualified hostname, a fully qualified
       domain name, a dotted quad IPv4 address, or an IPv6 address enclosed in
       square  brackets.  Link-local and site-local IPv6 addresses must be ac-
       companied by an interface identifier.  See ipv6(7) for details on spec-
       ifying raw IPv6 addresses.

       The  fstype  field  contains  "nfs".   Use  of  the  "nfs4"  fstype  in
       /etc/fstab is deprecated.

MOUNT OPTIONS
       Refer to mount(8) for a description of generic mount options  available
       for  all file systems. If you do not need to specify any mount options,
       use the generic option defaults in /etc/fstab.

   Options supported by all versions
       These options are valid to use with any NFS version.

       nfsvers=n      The NFS protocol version  number  used  to  contact  the
                      server's  NFS  service.   If the server does not support
                      the requested version, the mount request fails.  If this
                      option  is  not  specified, the client tries version 4.2
                      first, then negotiates down until  it  finds  a  version
                      supported by the server.

       vers=n         This option is an alternative to the nfsvers option.  It
                      is included for compatibility with other operating  sys-
                      tems

       soft / hard    Determines the recovery behavior of the NFS client after
                      an NFS request times out.  If neither option  is  speci-
                      fied  (or if the hard option is specified), NFS requests
                      are retried indefinitely.  If the soft option is  speci-
                      fied, then the NFS client fails an NFS request after re-
                      trans retransmissions have been sent,  causing  the  NFS
                      client to return an error to the calling application.

                      NB:  A  so-called  "soft"  timeout can cause silent data
                      corruption in certain cases. As such, use the  soft  op-
                      tion  only  when client responsiveness is more important
                      than data integrity.  Using NFS over TCP  or  increasing
                      the value of the retrans option may mitigate some of the
                      risks of using the soft option.

       softreval / nosoftreval
                      In cases where the NFS server is down, it may be  useful
                      to  allow  the  NFS client to continue to serve up paths
                      and attributes from  cache  after  retrans  attempts  to
                      revalidate that cache have timed out.  This may, for in-
                      stance, be helpful when trying to unmount  a  filesystem
                      tree from a server that is permanently down.

                      It  is possible to combine softreval with the soft mount
                      option, in which case operations that cannot  be  served
                      up  from  cache  will time out and return an error after
                      retrans attempts. The combination with the default  hard
                      mount option implies those uncached operations will con-
                      tinue to retry until a response  is  received  from  the
                      server.

                      Note: the default mount option is nosoftreval which dis-
                      allows fallback to cache when  revalidation  fails,  and
                      instead  follows  the  behavior  dictated by the hard or
                      soft mount option.

       intr / nointr  This option is provided for backward compatibility.   It
                      is ignored after kernel 2.6.25.

       timeo=n        The  time  in  deciseconds  (tenths of a second) the NFS
                      client waits for a response before it retries an NFS re-
                      quest.

                      For NFS over TCP the default timeo value is 600 (60 sec-
                      onds).  The NFS client performs  linear  backoff:  After
                      each retransmission the timeout is increased by timeo up
                      to the maximum of 600 seconds.

                      However, for NFS over UDP, the client uses  an  adaptive
                      algorithm  to  estimate an appropriate timeout value for
                      frequently used request types (such as  READ  and  WRITE
                      requests),  but  uses the timeo setting for infrequently
                      used request types (such as FSINFO  requests).   If  the
                      timeo option is not specified, infrequently used request
                      types are retried after 1.1  seconds.   After  each  re-
                      transmission,  the  NFS  client  doubles the timeout for
                      that request, up to a maximum timeout length of 60  sec-
                      onds.

       retrans=n      The number of times the NFS client retries a request be-
                      fore it attempts further recovery action. If the retrans
                      option  is  not specified, the NFS client tries each UDP
                      request three times and each TCP request twice.

                      The NFS client generates a "server not responding"  mes-
                      sage after retrans retries, then attempts further recov-
                      ery (depending on whether the hard mount  option  is  in
                      effect).

       rsize=n        The maximum number of bytes in each network READ request
                      that the NFS client can receive when reading data from a
                      file  on an NFS server.  The actual data payload size of
                      each NFS READ request is equal to or  smaller  than  the
                      rsize setting. The largest read payload supported by the
                      Linux NFS client is 1,048,576 bytes (one megabyte).

                      The rsize value is a positive integral multiple of 1024.
                      Specified rsize values lower than 1024 are replaced with
                      4096; values  larger  than  1048576  are  replaced  with
                      1048576.  If  a  specified value is within the supported
                      range but not a multiple of 1024, it is rounded down  to
                      the nearest multiple of 1024.

                      If  an rsize value is not specified, or if the specified
                      rsize value is  larger  than  the  maximum  that  either
                      client  or server can support, the client and server ne-
                      gotiate the largest rsize value that they can both  sup-
                      port.

                      The rsize mount option as specified on the mount(8) com-
                      mand line appears in the /etc/mtab  file.  However,  the
                      effective  rsize  value  negotiated  by  the  client and
                      server is reported in the /proc/mounts file.

       wsize=n        The maximum number of bytes per  network  WRITE  request
                      that the NFS client can send when writing data to a file
                      on an NFS server. The actual data payload size  of  each
                      NFS  WRITE request is equal to or smaller than the wsize
                      setting. The largest  write  payload  supported  by  the
                      Linux NFS client is 1,048,576 bytes (one megabyte).

                      Similar  to  rsize , the wsize value is a positive inte-
                      gral multiple of 1024.   Specified  wsize  values  lower
                      than  1024  are  replaced  with 4096; values larger than
                      1048576 are replaced with 1048576. If a specified  value
                      is  within  the  supported  range  but not a multiple of
                      1024, it is rounded down  to  the  nearest  multiple  of
                      1024.

                      If  a  wsize value is not specified, or if the specified
                      wsize value is  larger  than  the  maximum  that  either
                      client  or server can support, the client and server ne-
                      gotiate the largest wsize value that they can both  sup-
                      port.

                      The wsize mount option as specified on the mount(8) com-
                      mand line appears in the /etc/mtab  file.  However,  the
                      effective  wsize  value  negotiated  by  the  client and
                      server is reported in the /proc/mounts file.

       ac / noac      Selects whether the client may cache file attributes. If
                      neither option is specified (or if ac is specified), the
                      client caches file attributes.

                      To improve  performance,  NFS  clients  cache  file  at-
                      tributes.  Every  few  seconds, an NFS client checks the
                      server's version of each file's attributes for  updates.
                      Changes  that  occur on the server in those small inter-
                      vals remain  undetected  until  the  client  checks  the
                      server  again.  The  noac  option  prevents clients from
                      caching file attributes so that  applications  can  more
                      quickly detect file changes on the server.

                      In  addition  to preventing the client from caching file
                      attributes, the noac option forces application writes to
                      become  synchronous  so that local changes to a file be-
                      come visible on the server immediately.  That way, other
                      clients can quickly detect recent writes when they check
                      the file's attributes.

                      Using the noac option provides greater  cache  coherence
                      among  NFS  clients accessing the same files, but it ex-
                      tracts a significant performance penalty.  As such,  ju-
                      dicious  use of file locking is encouraged instead.  The
                      DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section contains a  detailed
                      discussion of these trade-offs.

       acregmin=n     The minimum time (in seconds) that the NFS client caches
                      attributes of a regular file before  it  requests  fresh
                      attribute  information from a server.  If this option is
                      not specified, the NFS client uses a  3-second  minimum.
                      See  the  DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section for a full
                      discussion of attribute caching.

       acregmax=n     The maximum time (in seconds) that the NFS client caches
                      attributes  of  a  regular file before it requests fresh
                      attribute information from a server.  If this option  is
                      not  specified, the NFS client uses a 60-second maximum.
                      See the DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section for  a  full
                      discussion of attribute caching.

       acdirmin=n     The minimum time (in seconds) that the NFS client caches
                      attributes of a directory before it requests  fresh  at-
                      tribute  information  from  a server.  If this option is
                      not specified, the NFS client uses a 30-second  minimum.
                      See  the  DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section for a full
                      discussion of attribute caching.

       acdirmax=n     The maximum time (in seconds) that the NFS client caches
                      attributes  of  a directory before it requests fresh at-
                      tribute information from a server.  If  this  option  is
                      not  specified, the NFS client uses a 60-second maximum.
                      See the DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section for  a  full
                      discussion of attribute caching.

       actimeo=n      Using  actimeo sets all of acregmin, acregmax, acdirmin,
                      and acdirmax to the same value.  If this option  is  not
                      specified,  the NFS client uses the defaults for each of
                      these options listed above.

       bg / fg        Determines how the mount(8) command behaves  if  an  at-
                      tempt  to  mount  an export fails.  The fg option causes
                      mount(8) to exit with an error status if any part of the
                      mount  request  times  out  or  fails outright.  This is
                      called a "foreground" mount, and is the default behavior
                      if neither the fg nor bg mount option is specified.

                      If  the  bg  option  is  specified, a timeout or failure
                      causes the mount(8) command to fork a child  which  con-
                      tinues to attempt to mount the export.  The parent imme-
                      diately returns with a zero exit code.  This is known as
                      a "background" mount.

                      If  the  local  mount  point  directory  is missing, the
                      mount(8) command acts as if the mount request timed out.
                      This  permits  nested NFS mounts specified in /etc/fstab
                      to proceed in any order  during  system  initialization,
                      even  if some NFS servers are not yet available.  Alter-
                      natively these issues can be addressed  using  an  auto-
                      mounter (refer to automount(8) for details).

       nconnect=n     When  using  a connection oriented protocol such as TCP,
                      it may sometimes be advantageous to set up multiple con-
                      nections between the client and server. For instance, if
                      your clients and/or servers are equipped  with  multiple
                      network  interface  cards (NICs), using multiple connec-
                      tions to spread the load  may  improve  overall  perfor-
                      mance.   In  such  cases, the nconnect option allows the
                      user to specify the number of connections that should be
                      established  between the client and server up to a limit
                      of 16.

                      Note that the nconnect option may also be used  by  some
                      pNFS drivers to decide how many connections to set up to
                      the data servers.

       max_connect=n  While nconnect option sets a limit on the number of con-
                      nections  that  can be established to a given server IP,
                      max_connect option allows the user  to  specify  maximum
                      number  of  connections to different server IPs that be-
                      long to the same NFSv4.1+ server (session trunkable con-
                      nections)  up  to  a  limit of 16. When client discovers
                      that it established a client ID to an  already  existing
                      server,  instead  of  dropping the newly created network
                      transport, the client will add this  new  connection  to
                      the list of available transports for that RPC client.

       rdirplus / nordirplus
                      Selects  whether  to  use  NFS  v3 or v4 READDIRPLUS re-
                      quests.  If this option is not specified, the NFS client
                      uses READDIRPLUS requests on NFS v3 or v4 mounts to read
                      small directories.  Some applications perform better  if
                      the  client  uses only READDIR requests for all directo-
                      ries.

       retry=n        The number of minutes that the mount(8) command  retries
                      an  NFS  mount operation in the foreground or background
                      before giving up.  If this option is not specified,  the
                      default  value  for  foreground mounts is 2 minutes, and
                      the default value for background mounts is 10000 minutes
                      (80  minutes  shy  of  one week).  If a value of zero is
                      specified, the mount(8) command exits immediately  after
                      the first failure.

                      Note  that  this  only affects how many retries are made
                      and doesn't affect the delay caused by each retry.   For
                      UDP  each  retry  takes the time determined by the timeo
                      and retrans options, which by default will  be  about  7
                      seconds.   For  TCP the default is 3 minutes, but system
                      TCP connection timeouts will sometimes limit the timeout
                      of each retransmission to around 2 minutes.

       sec=flavors    A  colon-separated  list of one or more security flavors
                      to use for accessing files on the mounted export. If the
                      server  does not support any of these flavors, the mount
                      operation fails.  If sec= is not specified,  the  client
                      attempts  to find a security flavor that both the client
                      and the server supports.  Valid flavors are  none,  sys,
                      krb5, krb5i, and krb5p.  Refer to the SECURITY CONSIDER-
                      ATIONS section for details.

       sharecache / nosharecache
                      Determines how the client's  data  cache  and  attribute
                      cache are shared when mounting the same export more than
                      once concurrently.  Using the same cache reduces  memory
                      requirements  on  the client and presents identical file
                      contents to applications when the same  remote  file  is
                      accessed via different mount points.

                      If neither option is specified, or if the sharecache op-
                      tion is specified, then a single cache is used  for  all
                      mount  points  that  access  the  same  export.   If the
                      nosharecache option is specified, then that mount  point
                      gets  a unique cache.  Note that when data and attribute
                      caches are shared, the  mount  options  from  the  first
                      mount point take effect for subsequent concurrent mounts
                      of the same export.

                      As of kernel 2.6.18, the behavior specified by  noshare-
                      cache  is  legacy caching behavior. This is considered a
                      data risk since multiple cached copies of the same  file
                      on  the  same  client can become out of sync following a
                      local update of one of the copies.

       resvport / noresvport
                      Specifies whether the NFS client should use a privileged
                      source  port  when  communicating with an NFS server for
                      this mount point.  If this option is not  specified,  or
                      the  resvport option is specified, the NFS client uses a
                      privileged source port.  If  the  noresvport  option  is
                      specified,  the  NFS client uses a non-privileged source
                      port.  This option is supported in  kernels  2.6.28  and
                      later.

                      Using  non-privileged  source  ports  helps increase the
                      maximum number of NFS mount points allowed on a  client,
                      but  NFS  servers must be configured to allow clients to
                      connect via non-privileged source ports.

                      Refer to the SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS section for  impor-
                      tant details.

       lookupcache=mode
                      Specifies  how the kernel manages its cache of directory
                      entries for a given mount point.  mode  can  be  one  of
                      all,  none,  pos, or positive.  This option is supported
                      in kernels 2.6.28 and later.

                      The Linux NFS client caches the result of all NFS LOOKUP
                      requests.   If  the  requested directory entry exists on
                      the server, the result is referred to as  positive.   If
                      the  requested  directory  entry  does  not exist on the
                      server, the result is referred to as negative.

                      If this option is not specified, or if all is specified,
                      the client assumes both types of directory cache entries
                      are valid until  their  parent  directory's  cached  at-
                      tributes expire.

                      If pos or positive is specified, the client assumes pos-
                      itive entries are valid until their  parent  directory's
                      cached  attributes  expire, but always revalidates nega-
                      tive entires before an application can use them.

                      If none is specified, the client revalidates both  types
                      of directory cache entries before an application can use
                      them.  This permits quick detection of files  that  were
                      created  or removed by other clients, but can impact ap-
                      plication and server performance.

                      The DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section contains  a  de-
                      tailed discussion of these trade-offs.

       fsc / nofsc    Enable/Disables  the  cache of (read-only) data pages to
                      the  local  disk  using  the  FS-Cache   facility.   See
                      cachefilesd(8)       and      <kernel_source>/Documenta-
                      tion/filesystems/caching for detail on how to  configure
                      the FS-Cache facility.  Default value is nofsc.

       sloppy         The  sloppy  option  is  an  alternative  to  specifying
                      mount.nfs -s option.

   Options for NFS versions 2 and 3 only
       Use these options, along with the options in the above subsection,  for
       NFS versions 2 and 3 only.

       proto=netid    The  netid determines the transport that is used to com-
                      municate with the NFS  server.   Available  options  are
                      udp,  udp6, tcp, tcp6, rdma, and rdma6.  Those which end
                      in 6 use IPv6 addresses and are only available  if  sup-
                      port for TI-RPC is built in. Others use IPv4 addresses.

                      Each  transport  protocol uses different default retrans
                      and timeo settings.  Refer to the description  of  these
                      two mount options for details.

                      In  addition to controlling how the NFS client transmits
                      requests to the server, this mount option also  controls
                      how  the mount(8) command communicates with the server's
                      rpcbind and mountd services.  Specifying  a  netid  that
                      uses  TCP  forces  all traffic from the mount(8) command
                      and the NFS client to use TCP.  Specifying a netid  that
                      uses UDP forces all traffic types to use UDP.

                      Before  using NFS over UDP, refer to the TRANSPORT METH-
                      ODS section.

                      If the proto mount option is not specified, the mount(8)
                      command  discovers  which  protocols the server supports
                      and chooses an appropriate transport for  each  service.
                      Refer to the TRANSPORT METHODS section for more details.

       udp            The   udp   option   is  an  alternative  to  specifying
                      proto=udp.  It is included for compatibility with  other
                      operating systems.

                      Before  using NFS over UDP, refer to the TRANSPORT METH-
                      ODS section.

       tcp            The  tcp  option  is  an   alternative   to   specifying
                      proto=tcp.   It is included for compatibility with other
                      operating systems.

       rdma           The  rdma  option  is  an  alternative   to   specifying
                      proto=rdma.

       port=n         The  numeric value of the server's NFS service port.  If
                      the server's NFS service is not available on the  speci-
                      fied port, the mount request fails.

                      If  this  option  is  not specified, or if the specified
                      port value is 0, then the NFS client uses the  NFS  ser-
                      vice port number advertised by the server's rpcbind ser-
                      vice.  The mount request fails if the  server's  rpcbind
                      service  is  not  available, the server's NFS service is
                      not registered with its rpcbind service, or the server's
                      NFS service is not available on the advertised port.

       mountport=n    The  numeric  value of the server's mountd port.  If the
                      server's mountd service is not available on  the  speci-
                      fied port, the mount request fails.

                      If  this  option  is  not specified, or if the specified
                      port value is 0, then  the  mount(8)  command  uses  the
                      mountd  service  port  number advertised by the server's
                      rpcbind  service.   The  mount  request  fails  if   the
                      server's  rpcbind service is not available, the server's
                      mountd service is not registered with its  rpcbind  ser-
                      vice, or the server's mountd service is not available on
                      the advertised port.

                      This option can be used  when  mounting  an  NFS  server
                      through a firewall that blocks the rpcbind protocol.

       mountproto=netid
                      The  transport  the NFS client uses to transmit requests
                      to the NFS server's mountd service when performing  this
                      mount  request,  and  when  later  unmounting this mount
                      point.

                      netid may be one of udp, and tcp which use IPv4  address
                      or, if TI-RPC is built into the mount.nfs command, udp6,
                      and tcp6 which use IPv6 addresses.

                      This option can be used  when  mounting  an  NFS  server
                      through  a  firewall that blocks a particular transport.
                      When used in combination with the proto option,  differ-
                      ent  transports for mountd requests and NFS requests can
                      be specified.  If the server's  mountd  service  is  not
                      available via the specified transport, the mount request
                      fails.

                      Refer to the TRANSPORT METHODS section for more  on  how
                      the  mountproto  mount  option  interacts with the proto
                      mount option.

       mounthost=name The hostname of the host running mountd.  If this option
                      is  not specified, the mount(8) command assumes that the
                      mountd service runs on the same host as the NFS service.

       mountvers=n    The RPC version number  used  to  contact  the  server's
                      mountd.   If  this  option  is not specified, the client
                      uses a version number appropriate to the  requested  NFS
                      version.   This  option is useful when multiple NFS ser-
                      vices are running on the same remote server host.

       namlen=n       The maximum length  of  a  pathname  component  on  this
                      mount.   If  this  option  is not specified, the maximum
                      length is negotiated with the  server.  In  most  cases,
                      this maximum length is 255 characters.

                      Some early versions of NFS did not support this negotia-
                      tion.  Using this option ensures  that  pathconf(3)  re-
                      ports  the  proper  maximum component length to applica-
                      tions in such cases.

       lock / nolock  Selects whether to use the NLM sideband protocol to lock
                      files on the server.  If neither option is specified (or
                      if lock is specified), NLM  locking  is  used  for  this
                      mount point.  When using the nolock option, applications
                      can lock files, but such locks  provide  exclusion  only
                      against  other  applications running on the same client.
                      Remote applications are not affected by these locks.

                      NLM locking must be disabled with the nolock option when
                      using NFS to mount /var because /var contains files used
                      by the NLM implementation on Linux.   Using  the  nolock
                      option  is  also  required  when mounting exports on NFS
                      servers that do not support the NLM protocol.

       cto / nocto    Selects whether to use close-to-open cache coherence se-
                      mantics.   If  neither option is specified (or if cto is
                      specified), the client uses close-to-open  cache  coher-
                      ence  semantics.  If  the nocto option is specified, the
                      client uses a non-standard heuristic to  determine  when
                      files on the server have changed.

                      Using the nocto option may improve performance for read-
                      only mounts, but should be used only if the data on  the
                      server changes only occasionally.  The DATA AND METADATA
                      COHERENCE section discusses the behavior of this  option
                      in more detail.

       acl / noacl    Selects  whether  to use the NFSACL sideband protocol on
                      this mount point.  The NFSACL  sideband  protocol  is  a
                      proprietary protocol implemented in Solaris that manages
                      Access Control Lists. NFSACL was never made  a  standard
                      part of the NFS protocol specification.

                      If  neither  acl  nor noacl option is specified, the NFS
                      client negotiates with the server to see if  the  NFSACL
                      protocol  is  supported,  and uses it if the server sup-
                      ports it.  Disabling the NFSACL sideband protocol may be
                      necessary  if  the  negotiation  causes  problems on the
                      client or server.  Refer to the SECURITY  CONSIDERATIONS
                      section for more details.

       local_lock=mechanism
                      Specifies  whether  to use local locking for any or both
                      of the flock and the POSIX locking  mechanisms.   mecha-
                      nism can be one of all, flock, posix, or none.  This op-
                      tion is supported in kernels 2.6.37 and later.

                      The Linux NFS client provides a way to make locks local.
                      This  means,  the  applications can lock files, but such
                      locks provide exclusion only against other  applications
                      running  on the same client. Remote applications are not
                      affected by these locks.

                      If this option is not specified, or if  none  is  speci-
                      fied, the client assumes that the locks are not local.

                      If  all is specified, the client assumes that both flock
                      and POSIX locks are local.

                      If flock is specified,  the  client  assumes  that  only
                      flock  locks are local and uses NLM sideband protocol to
                      lock files when POSIX locks are used.

                      If posix is specified, the  client  assumes  that  POSIX
                      locks  are  local and uses NLM sideband protocol to lock
                      files when flock locks are used.

                      To support legacy flock behavior similar to that of  NFS
                      clients < 2.6.12, use 'local_lock=flock'. This option is
                      required when exporting NFS mounts via  Samba  as  Samba
                      maps  Windows  share  mode  locks  as  flock.  Since NFS
                      clients > 2.6.12  implement  flock  by  emulating  POSIX
                      locks, this will result in conflicting locks.

                      NOTE:  When used together, the 'local_lock' mount option
                      will be overridden by 'nolock'/'lock' mount option.

   Options for NFS version 4 only
       Use these options, along with  the  options  in  the  first  subsection
       above, for NFS version 4.0 and newer.

       proto=netid    The  netid determines the transport that is used to com-
                      municate with the NFS  server.   Supported  options  are
                      tcp, tcp6, rdma, and rdma6.  tcp6 use IPv6 addresses and
                      is only available if support for  TI-RPC  is  built  in.
                      Both others use IPv4 addresses.

                      All  NFS  version 4 servers are required to support TCP,
                      so if this mount option is not specified, the  NFS  ver-
                      sion  4  client  uses  the  TCP  protocol.  Refer to the
                      TRANSPORT METHODS section for more details.

       minorversion=n Specifies the protocol minor version number.  NFSv4  in-
                      troduces "minor versioning," where NFS protocol enhance-
                      ments can be introduced without bumping the NFS protocol
                      version number.  Before kernel 2.6.38, the minor version
                      is always zero, and this option is not recognized.   Af-
                      ter  this  kernel, specifying "minorversion=1" enables a
                      number of advanced features, such as NFSv4 sessions.

                      Recent kernels allow the minor version to  be  specified
                      using   the   vers=  option.   For  example,  specifying
                      vers=4.1 is  the  same  as  specifying  vers=4,minorver-
                      sion=1.

       port=n         The  numeric value of the server's NFS service port.  If
                      the server's NFS service is not available on the  speci-
                      fied port, the mount request fails.

                      If  this  mount  option is not specified, the NFS client
                      uses the standard NFS port number of 2049 without  first
                      checking  the  server's rpcbind service.  This allows an
                      NFS version 4 client to contact an NFS version 4  server
                      through a firewall that may block rpcbind requests.

                      If  the  specified  port value is 0, then the NFS client
                      uses the NFS  service  port  number  advertised  by  the
                      server's  rpcbind  service.   The mount request fails if
                      the server's  rpcbind  service  is  not  available,  the
                      server's  NFS service is not registered with its rpcbind
                      service, or the server's NFS service is not available on
                      the advertised port.

       cto / nocto    Selects whether to use close-to-open cache coherence se-
                      mantics for NFS directories on  this  mount  point.   If
                      neither  cto  nor  nocto is specified, the default is to
                      use close-to-open cache coherence semantics for directo-
                      ries.

                      File  data  caching behavior is not affected by this op-
                      tion.  The DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE section discusses
                      the behavior of this option in more detail.

       clientaddr=n.n.n.n

       clientaddr=n:n:...:n
                      Specifies  a  single IPv4 address (in dotted-quad form),
                      or a non-link-local IPv6 address, that  the  NFS  client
                      advertises  to  allow servers to perform NFS version 4.0
                      callback requests against files on this mount point.  If
                      the   server is unable to establish callback connections
                      to clients, performance  may  degrade,  or  accesses  to
                      files  may  temporarily  hang.   Can  specify a value of
                      IPv4_ANY (0.0.0.0) or equivalent IPv6 any address  which
                      will  signal to the NFS server that this NFS client does
                      not want delegations.

                      If this option is not specified,  the  mount(8)  command
                      attempts to discover an appropriate callback address au-
                      tomatically.  The automatic  discovery  process  is  not
                      perfect,  however.   In  the presence of multiple client
                      network interfaces, special routing policies, or  atypi-
                      cal  network  topologies,  the  exact address to use for
                      callbacks may be nontrivial to determine.

                      NFS protocol versions 4.1 and 4.2 use the  client-estab-
                      lished  TCP  connection for callback requests, so do not
                      require the server to connect to the client.   This  op-
                      tion is therefore only affect NFS version 4.0 mounts.

       migration / nomigration
                      Selects whether the client uses an identification string
                      that is compatible with NFSv4 Transparent  State  Migra-
                      tion (TSM).  If the mounted server supports NFSv4 migra-
                      tion with TSM, specify the migration option.

                      Some server features misbehave in the face of  a  migra-
                      tion-compatible  identification string.  The nomigration
                      option retains the use of a traditional client  indenti-
                      fication  string  which  is  compatible  with legacy NFS
                      servers.  This is also the behavior if neither option is
                      specified.  A client's open and lock state cannot be mi-
                      grated transparently when it  identifies  itself  via  a
                      traditional identification string.

                      This  mount  option  has no effect with NFSv4 minor ver-
                      sions newer than zero, which always  use  TSM-compatible
                      client identification strings.

nfs4 FILE SYSTEM TYPE
       The  nfs4 file system type is an old syntax for specifying NFSv4 usage.
       It can still be used with all NFSv4-specific and  common  options,  ex-
       cepted the nfsvers mount option.

MOUNT CONFIGURATION FILE
       If  the  mount command is configured to do so, all of the mount options
       described in the  previous  section  can  also  be  configured  in  the
       /etc/nfsmount.conf file. See nfsmount.conf(5) for details.

EXAMPLES
       mount  option.   To  mount using NFS version 3, use the nfs file system
       type and specify the nfsvers=3 mount option.  To mount using  NFS  ver-
       sion  4,  use either the nfs file system type, with the nfsvers=4 mount
       option, or the nfs4 file system type.

       The following example from an /etc/fstab file causes the mount  command
       to negotiate reasonable defaults for NFS behavior.

               server:/export  /mnt  nfs   defaults                      0 0

       This  example shows how to mount using NFS version 4 over TCP with Ker-
       beros 5 mutual authentication.

               server:/export  /mnt  nfs4  sec=krb5                      0 0

       This example shows how to mount using NFS version 4 over TCP with  Ker-
       beros 5 privacy or data integrity mode.

               server:/export  /mnt  nfs4  sec=krb5p:krb5i               0 0

       This example can be used to mount /usr over NFS.

               server:/export  /usr  nfs   ro,nolock,nocto,actimeo=3600  0 0

       This example shows how to mount an NFS server using a raw IPv6 link-lo-
       cal address.

               [fe80::215:c5ff:fb3e:e2b1%eth0]:/export /mnt nfs defaults 0 0

TRANSPORT METHODS
       NFS clients send requests to NFS servers via Remote Procedure Calls, or
       RPCs.  The RPC client discovers remote service endpoints automatically,
       handles per-request authentication, adjusts request parameters for dif-
       ferent  byte  endianness on client and server, and retransmits requests
       that may have been lost by the network or  server.   RPC  requests  and
       replies flow over a network transport.

       In most cases, the mount(8) command, NFS client, and NFS server can au-
       tomatically negotiate proper transport and data transfer size  settings
       for  a  mount  point.  In some cases, however, it pays to specify these
       settings explicitly using mount options.

       Traditionally, NFS clients  used  the  UDP  transport  exclusively  for
       transmitting requests to servers.  Though its implementation is simple,
       NFS over UDP has many limitations that  prevent  smooth  operation  and
       good  performance  in some common deployment environments.  Even an in-
       significant packet loss rate results in the loss of whole NFS requests;
       as  such, retransmit timeouts are usually in the subsecond range to al-
       low clients to recover quickly from dropped requests, but this can  re-
       sult in extraneous network traffic and server load.

       However,  UDP  can be quite effective in specialized settings where the
       networks MTU is large relative to NFSs data transfer size (such as net-
       work environments that enable jumbo Ethernet frames).  In such environ-
       ments, trimming the rsize and wsize settings so that each NFS  read  or
       write  request  fits in just a few network frames (or even in  a single
       frame) is advised.  This reduces the probability that  the  loss  of  a
       single  MTU-sized  network frame results in the loss of an entire large
       read or write request.

       TCP is the default transport protocol used for all modern NFS implemen-
       tations.  It performs well in almost every conceivable network environ-
       ment and provides excellent guarantees against data  corruption  caused
       by  network  unreliability.   TCP is often a requirement for mounting a
       server through a network firewall.

       Under normal circumstances, networks drop packets much more  frequently
       than  NFS  servers  drop  requests.   As such, an aggressive retransmit
       timeout  setting for NFS over TCP is unnecessary. Typical timeout  set-
       tings  for  NFS  over  TCP are between one and ten minutes.  After  the
       client exhausts its retransmits (the value of  the  retrans  mount  op-
       tion), it assumes a network partition has occurred, and attempts to re-
       connect to the server on a fresh socket. Since TCP itself makes network
       data  transfer  reliable,  rsize and wsize can safely be allowed to de-
       fault to the largest values supported by both client and server,  inde-
       pendent of the network's MTU size.

   Using the mountproto mount option
       This  section  applies only to NFS version 3 mounts since NFS version 4
       does not use a separate protocol for mount requests.

       The Linux NFS client can use a different transport  for  contacting  an
       NFS server's rpcbind service, its mountd service, its Network Lock Man-
       ager (NLM) service, and its NFS service.  The exact transports employed
       by the Linux NFS client for each mount point depends on the settings of
       the transport mount options, which include proto, mountproto, udp,  and
       tcp.

       The  client sends Network Status Manager (NSM) notifications via UDP no
       matter what transport options are specified, but listens for server NSM
       notifications  on  both  UDP and TCP.  The NFS Access Control List (NF-
       SACL) protocol shares the same transport as the main NFS service.

       If no transport options are specified, the Linux NFS client uses UDP to
       contact the server's mountd service, and TCP to contact its NLM and NFS
       services by default.

       If the server does not support these transports for these services, the
       mount(8)  command  attempts  to  discover what the server supports, and
       then retries the mount request once using  the  discovered  transports.
       If  the server does not advertise any transport supported by the client
       or is misconfigured, the mount request fails.  If the bg option  is  in
       effect,  the  mount command backgrounds itself and continues to attempt
       the specified mount request.

       When the proto option, the udp option, or the tcp option  is  specified
       but  the  mountproto  option is not, the specified transport is used to
       contact both the server's mountd service and for the NLM and  NFS  ser-
       vices.

       If the mountproto option is specified but none of the proto, udp or tcp
       options are specified, then the specified transport  is  used  for  the
       initial mountd request, but the mount command attempts to discover what
       the server supports for the NFS protocol, preferring TCP if both trans-
       ports are supported.

       If both the mountproto and proto (or udp or tcp) options are specified,
       then the transport specified by the mountproto option is used  for  the
       initial mountd request, and the transport specified by the proto option
       (or the udp or tcp options) is used for NFS, no matter what order these
       options  appear.   No automatic service discovery is performed if these
       options are specified.

       If any of the proto, udp, tcp, or mountproto options are specified more
       than  once on the same mount command line, then the value of the right-
       most instance of each of these options takes effect.

   Using NFS over UDP on high-speed links
       Using NFS over UDP on high-speed links such as Gigabit can cause silent
       data corruption.

       The  problem  can be triggered at high loads, and is caused by problems
       in IP fragment reassembly. NFS read and writes typically  transmit  UDP
       packets of 4 Kilobytes or more, which have to be broken up into several
       fragments in order to be sent over  the  Ethernet  link,  which  limits
       packets  to  1500 bytes by default. This process happens at the IP net-
       work layer and is called fragmentation.

       In order to identify fragments that belong together, IP assigns a 16bit
       IP  ID  value  to  each  packet;  fragments generated from the same UDP
       packet will have the same IP ID.  The  receiving  system  will  collect
       these  fragments and combine them to form the original UDP packet. This
       process is called reassembly. The default timeout for packet reassembly
       is 30 seconds; if the network stack does not receive all fragments of a
       given packet within this interval, it assumes the  missing  fragment(s)
       got lost and discards those it already received.

       The  problem  this creates over high-speed links is that it is possible
       to send more than 65536 packets within 30 seconds. In fact, with  heavy
       NFS  traffic  one can observe that the IP IDs repeat after about 5 sec-
       onds.

       This has serious effects on reassembly: if one fragment gets lost,  an-
       other fragment from a different packet but with the same IP ID will ar-
       rive within the 30 second timeout, and the network stack  will  combine
       these  fragments to form a new packet. Most of the time, network layers
       above IP will detect this mismatched reassembly - in the case  of  UDP,
       the  UDP  checksum,  which  is a 16 bit checksum over the entire packet
       payload, will usually not match, and UDP will discard the bad packet.

       However, the UDP checksum is 16 bit only, so there is a chance of 1  in
       65536  that it will match even if the packet payload is completely ran-
       dom (which very often isn't the case). If that is the case, silent data
       corruption will occur.

       This potential should be taken seriously, at least on Gigabit Ethernet.
       Network speeds of 100Mbit/s should be considered less problematic,  be-
       cause  with  most  traffic  patterns  IP  ID wrap around will take much
       longer than 30 seconds.

       It is therefore strongly recommended to use NFS over TCP  where  possi-
       ble, since TCP does not perform fragmentation.

       If  you absolutely have to use NFS over UDP over Gigabit Ethernet, some
       steps can be taken to mitigate the problem and reduce  the  probability
       of corruption:

       Jumbo frames:  Many  Gigabit  network cards are capable of transmitting
                      frames bigger than the 1500 byte  limit  of  traditional
                      Ethernet,  typically  9000  bytes. Using jumbo frames of
                      9000 bytes will allow you to run NFS over UDP at a  page
                      size  of  8K  without  fragmentation. Of course, this is
                      only feasible if all  involved  stations  support  jumbo
                      frames.

                      To  enable  a machine to send jumbo frames on cards that
                      support it, it is sufficient to configure the  interface
                      for a MTU value of 9000.

       Lower reassembly timeout:
                      By  lowering this timeout below the time it takes the IP
                      ID counter to wrap around, incorrect reassembly of frag-
                      ments  can  be prevented as well. To do so, simply write
                      the  new  timeout  value  (in  seconds)  to   the   file
                      /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ipfrag_time.

                      A value of 2 seconds will greatly reduce the probability
                      of IPID clashes on a single Gigabit  link,  while  still
                      allowing  for  a reasonable timeout when receiving frag-
                      mented traffic from distant peers.

DATA AND METADATA COHERENCE
       Some modern cluster file systems provide perfect cache coherence  among
       their  clients.  Perfect cache coherence among disparate NFS clients is
       expensive to achieve, especially on wide area networks.  As  such,  NFS
       settles  for  weaker cache coherence that satisfies the requirements of
       most file sharing types.

   Close-to-open cache consistency
       Typically file sharing is completely sequential.  First client A  opens
       a  file,  writes  something to it, then closes it.  Then client B opens
       the same file, and reads the changes.

       When an application opens a file stored on an NFS version 3 server, the
       NFS  client  checks that the file exists on the server and is permitted
       to the opener by sending a GETATTR or ACCESS request.  The  NFS  client
       sends  these  requests regardless of the freshness of the file's cached
       attributes.

       When the application closes the file, the NFS client  writes  back  any
       pending  changes  to  the  file  so  that  the next opener can view the
       changes.  This also gives the NFS client an opportunity to report write
       errors to the application via the return code from close(2).

       The behavior of checking at open time and flushing at close time is re-
       ferred to as close-to-open cache consistency, or CTO.  It can  be  dis-
       abled for an entire mount point using the nocto mount option.

   Weak cache consistency
       There  are  still  opportunities  for  a client's data cache to contain
       stale data.  The NFS version 3 protocol introduced "weak cache  consis-
       tency" (also known as WCC) which provides a way of efficiently checking
       a file's attributes before and after a single request.  This  allows  a
       client  to  help  identify  changes  that could have been made by other
       clients.

       When a client is using many concurrent operations that update the  same
       file  at the same time (for example, during asynchronous write behind),
       it is still difficult to tell whether it was that client's  updates  or
       some other client's updates that altered the file.

   Attribute caching
       Use  the  noac  mount option to achieve attribute cache coherence among
       multiple clients.  Almost every file system operation checks  file  at-
       tribute  information.   The  client keeps this information cached for a
       period of time to reduce network and server load.  When noac is in  ef-
       fect,  a  client's  file attribute cache is disabled, so each operation
       that needs to check a file's attributes is forced to  go  back  to  the
       server.   This  permits a client to see changes to a file very quickly,
       at the cost of many extra network operations.

       Be careful not to confuse the noac option with "no data caching."   The
       noac  mount  option prevents the client from caching file metadata, but
       there are still races that may result in data cache incoherence between
       client and server.

       The  NFS  protocol  is not designed to support true cluster file system
       cache coherence without some type of application serialization.  If ab-
       solute  cache  coherence among clients is required, applications should
       use file locking. Alternatively, applications can also open their files
       with the O_DIRECT flag to disable data caching entirely.

   File timestamp maintenance
       NFS  servers are responsible for managing file and directory timestamps
       (atime, ctime, and mtime).  When a file is accessed or  updated  on  an
       NFS  server,  the file's timestamps are updated just like they would be
       on a filesystem local to an application.

       NFS clients cache file  attributes,  including  timestamps.   A  file's
       timestamps are updated on NFS clients when its attributes are retrieved
       from the NFS server.  Thus there may be some delay before timestamp up-
       dates on an NFS server appear to applications on NFS clients.

       To  comply with the POSIX filesystem standard, the Linux NFS client re-
       lies on NFS servers to keep a file's mtime and ctime  timestamps  prop-
       erly  up  to  date.  It does this by flushing local data changes to the
       server before reporting mtime to applications via system calls such  as
       stat(2).

       The  Linux  client  handles  atime  updates more loosely, however.  NFS
       clients maintain good performance by caching data, but that means  that
       application  reads,  which  normally update atime, are not reflected to
       the server where a file's atime is actually maintained.

       Because of this caching behavior, the Linux NFS client does not support
       generic atime-related mount options.  See mount(8) for details on these
       options.

       In particular, the atime/noatime, diratime/nodiratime, relatime/norela-
       time, and strictatime/nostrictatime mount options have no effect on NFS
       mounts.

       /proc/mounts may report that the relatime mount option is  set  on  NFS
       mounts,  but  in fact the atime semantics are always as described here,
       and are not like relatime semantics.

   Directory entry caching
       The Linux NFS client caches the result of all NFS LOOKUP requests.   If
       the  requested  directory entry exists on the server, the result is re-
       ferred to as a positive lookup result.  If the requested directory  en-
       try does not exist on the server (that is, the server returned ENOENT),
       the result is referred to as negative lookup result.

       To detect when directory entries have been  added  or  removed  on  the
       server,  the  Linux  NFS  client  watches  a directory's mtime.  If the
       client detects a change in a directory's mtime, the  client  drops  all
       cached  LOOKUP results for that directory.  Since the directory's mtime
       is a cached attribute, it may take some time before a client notices it
       has  changed.  See the descriptions of the acdirmin, acdirmax, and noac
       mount options for more information about how long a  directory's  mtime
       is cached.

       Caching directory entries improves the performance of applications that
       do not share files with applications on other  clients.   Using  cached
       information  about directories can interfere with applications that run
       concurrently on multiple clients and need to detect the creation or re-
       moval  of  files quickly, however.  The lookupcache mount option allows
       some tuning of directory entry caching behavior.

       Before kernel release 2.6.28, the Linux NFS client tracked  only  posi-
       tive  lookup results.  This permitted applications to detect new direc-
       tory entries created by other clients  quickly  while  still  providing
       some of the performance benefits of caching.  If an application depends
       on the previous lookup caching behavior of the Linux  NFS  client,  you
       can use lookupcache=positive.

       If  the client ignores its cache and validates every application lookup
       request with the server, that client can immediately detect when a  new
       directory  entry  has been either created or removed by another client.
       You can specify this behavior using lookupcache=none.   The  extra  NFS
       requests  needed if the client does not cache directory entries can ex-
       act a performance penalty.  Disabling lookup caching should  result  in
       less of a performance penalty than using noac, and has no effect on how
       the NFS client caches the attributes of files.

   The sync mount option
       The NFS client treats the sync mount option differently than some other
       file  systems  (refer to mount(8) for a description of the generic sync
       and async mount options).  If neither sync nor async is  specified  (or
       if the async option is specified), the NFS client delays sending appli-
       cation writes to the server until any of these events occur:

              Memory pressure forces reclamation of system memory resources.

              An  application  flushes  file  data  explicitly  with  sync(2),
              msync(2), or fsync(3).

              An application closes a file with close(2).

              The file is locked/unlocked via fcntl(2).

       In other words, under normal circumstances, data written by an applica-
       tion may not immediately appear on the server that hosts the file.

       If the sync option is specified on a mount point, any system call  that
       writes data to files on that mount point causes that data to be flushed
       to the server before the system call returns  control  to  user  space.
       This provides greater data cache coherence among clients, but at a sig-
       nificant performance cost.

       Applications can use the O_SYNC open flag to force  application  writes
       to  individual files to go to the server immediately without the use of
       the sync mount option.

   Using file locks with NFS
       The Network Lock Manager protocol is a separate sideband protocol  used
       to  manage file locks in NFS version 3.  To support lock recovery after
       a client or server reboot, a second sideband protocol -- known  as  the
       Network Status Manager protocol -- is also required.  In NFS version 4,
       file locking is supported directly in the main NFS  protocol,  and  the
       NLM and NSM sideband protocols are not used.

       In  most  cases, NLM and NSM services are started automatically, and no
       extra configuration is required.  Configure all NFS clients with fully-
       qualified  domain  names to ensure that NFS servers can find clients to
       notify them of server reboots.

       NLM supports advisory file locks only.  To lock NFS files, use fcntl(2)
       with  the  F_GETLK  and F_SETLK commands.  The NFS client converts file
       locks obtained via flock(2) to advisory locks.

       When mounting servers that do not support the  NLM  protocol,  or  when
       mounting  an  NFS server through a firewall that blocks the NLM service
       port, specify the nolock mount option. NLM  locking  must  be  disabled
       with  the  nolock option when using NFS to mount /var because /var con-
       tains files used by the NLM implementation on Linux.

       Specifying the nolock option may also be advised to improve the perfor-
       mance  of  a  proprietary application which runs on a single client and
       uses file locks extensively.

   NFS version 4 caching features
       The data and metadata caching behavior of NFS version 4 clients is sim-
       ilar to that of earlier versions.  However, NFS version 4 adds two fea-
       tures that improve cache behavior: change attributes and  file  delega-
       tion.

       The  change  attribute is a new part of NFS file and directory metadata
       which tracks data changes.  It replaces the use of a  file's  modifica-
       tion  and  change time stamps as a way for clients to validate the con-
       tent of their caches.  Change attributes are independent  of  the  time
       stamp resolution on either the server or client, however.

       A  file  delegation  is  a contract between an NFS version 4 client and
       server that allows the client to treat a  file  temporarily  as  if  no
       other client is accessing it.  The server promises to notify the client
       (via a callback request) if another  client  attempts  to  access  that
       file.  Once a file has been delegated to a client, the client can cache
       that file's data  and  metadata  aggressively  without  contacting  the
       server.

       File  delegations  come in two flavors: read and write.  A read delega-
       tion means that the server notifies the client about any other  clients
       that  want  to  write  to  the file.  A write delegation means that the
       client gets notified about either read or write accessors.

       Servers grant file delegations when a file is opened,  and  can  recall
       delegations  at  any  time when another client wants access to the file
       that conflicts with any delegations already  granted.   Delegations  on
       directories are not supported.

       In  order to support delegation callback, the server checks the network
       return path to the client during the client's initial contact with  the
       server.   If  contact with the client cannot be established, the server
       simply does not grant any delegations to that client.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
       NFS servers control access to file data, but they depend on  their  RPC
       implementation  to provide authentication of NFS requests.  Traditional
       NFS access control mimics the standard mode bit access control provided
       in local file systems.  Traditional RPC authentication uses a number to
       represent each user (usually the user's own uid), a number to represent
       the  user's  group  (the  user's  gid), and a set of up to 16 auxiliary
       group numbers to represent other groups of which the user may be a mem-
       ber.

       Typically,  file  data  and user ID values appear unencrypted (i.e. "in
       the clear") on the network.  Moreover, NFS versions 2 and 3  use  sepa-
       rate  sideband protocols for mounting, locking and unlocking files, and
       reporting system status of clients and servers.  These auxiliary proto-
       cols use no authentication.

       In  addition  to  combining  these sideband protocols with the main NFS
       protocol, NFS version 4 introduces more advanced forms of  access  con-
       trol,  authentication, and in-transit data protection.  The NFS version
       4 specification mandates support for strong authentication and security
       flavors  that  provide  per-RPC integrity checking and encryption.  Be-
       cause NFS version 4 combines the function  of  the  sideband  protocols
       into  the main NFS protocol, the new security features apply to all NFS
       version 4 operations including  mounting,  file  locking,  and  so  on.
       RPCGSS  authentication  can also be used with NFS versions 2 and 3, but
       it does not protect their sideband protocols.

       The sec mount option specifies the security flavor used for  operations
       on  behalf  of users on that NFS mount point.  Specifying sec=krb5 pro-
       vides cryptographic proof of a user's identity  in  each  RPC  request.
       This  provides  strong  verification of the identity of users accessing
       data on the server.  Note that additional configuration besides  adding
       this  mount  option  is  required in order to enable Kerberos security.
       Refer to the rpc.gssd(8) man page for details.

       Two additional flavors of Kerberos security are  supported:  krb5i  and
       krb5p.   The  krb5i security flavor provides a cryptographically strong
       guarantee that the data in each RPC request has not been tampered with.
       The  krb5p  security  flavor encrypts every RPC request to prevent data
       exposure during network transit; however, expect some  performance  im-
       pact  when using integrity checking or encryption.  Similar support for
       other forms of cryptographic security is also available.

   NFS version 4 filesystem crossing
       The NFS version 4 protocol allows a client to renegotiate the  security
       flavor  when  the  client  crosses into a new filesystem on the server.
       The newly negotiated flavor effects only accesses of the  new  filesys-
       tem.

       Such negotiation typically occurs when a client crosses from a server's
       pseudo-fs into one of the server's exported physical filesystems, which
       often have more restrictive security settings than the pseudo-fs.

   NFS version 4 Leases
       In NFS version 4, a lease is a period during which a server irrevocably
       grants a client file locks.  Once the lease expires, the server may re-
       voke  those  locks.  Clients periodically renew their leases to prevent
       lock revocation.

       After an NFS version 4 server reboots, each  client  tells  the  server
       about  existing  file open and lock state under its lease before opera-
       tion can continue.  If a client reboots, the server frees all open  and
       lock state associated with that client's lease.

       When  establishing a lease, therefore, a client must identify itself to
       a server.  Each client presents an arbitrary string to distinguish  it-
       self  from  other clients.  The client administrator can supplement the
       default identity string using the nfs4.nfs4_unique_id module  parameter
       to avoid collisions with other client identity strings.

       A  client  also uses a unique security flavor and principal when it es-
       tablishes its lease.  If two clients present the same identity  string,
       a  server  can  use client principals to distinguish between them, thus
       securely preventing one client from interfering with the other's lease.

       The Linux NFS client establishes  one  lease  on  each  NFS  version  4
       server.   Lease  management  operations, such as lease renewal, are not
       done on behalf of a particular file, lock, user, or mount point, but on
       behalf  of the client that owns that lease.  A client uses a consistent
       identity string, security flavor, and principal across  client  reboots
       to ensure that the server can promptly reap expired lease state.

       When  Kerberos  is  configured  on a Linux NFS client (i.e., there is a
       /etc/krb5.keytab on that client), the client attempts to use a Kerberos
       security flavor for its lease management operations.  Kerberos provides
       secure authentication of each client.  By default, the client uses  the
       host/  or  nfs/ service principal in its /etc/krb5.keytab for this pur-
       pose, as described in rpc.gssd(8).

       If the client has Kerberos configured, but the server does not,  or  if
       the  client does not have a keytab or the requisite service principals,
       the client uses AUTH_SYS and UID 0 for lease management.

   Using non-privileged source ports
       NFS clients usually communicate with NFS servers via  network  sockets.
       Each end of a socket is assigned a port value, which is simply a number
       between 1 and 65535 that distinguishes socket endpoints at the same  IP
       address.   A  socket  is  uniquely defined by a tuple that includes the
       transport protocol (TCP or UDP) and the port values and IP addresses of
       both endpoints.

       The  NFS  client  can choose any source port value for its sockets, but
       usually chooses a privileged port.  A privileged port is a  port  value
       less  than  1024.   Only  a  process  with root privileges may create a
       socket with a privileged source port.

       The exact range of privileged source ports that can be chosen is set by
       a pair of sysctls to avoid choosing a well-known port, such as the port
       used by ssh.  This means the number of source ports available  for  the
       NFS  client, and therefore the number of socket connections that can be
       used at the same time, is practically limited to only a few hundred.

       As described above, the traditional default NFS authentication  scheme,
       known as AUTH_SYS, relies on sending local UID and GID numbers to iden-
       tify users making NFS requests.  An NFS server assumes that if  a  con-
       nection  comes  from  a privileged port, the UID and GID numbers in the
       NFS requests on this connection have been verified by the client's ker-
       nel  or  some  other local authority.  This is an easy system to spoof,
       but on a trusted physical network between trusted hosts, it is entirely
       adequate.

       Roughly  speaking,  one  socket is used for each NFS mount point.  If a
       client could use non-privileged source ports as  well,  the  number  of
       sockets  allowed,  and  thus  the  maximum  number  of concurrent mount
       points, would be much larger.

       Using non-privileged source ports may compromise server security  some-
       what, since any user on AUTH_SYS mount points can now pretend to be any
       other when making NFS requests.  Thus NFS servers do not  support  this
       by default.  They explicitly allow it usually via an export option.

       To  retain  good security while allowing as many mount points as possi-
       ble, it is best to allow non-privileged client connections only if  the
       server and client both require strong authentication, such as Kerberos.

   Mounting through a firewall
       A  firewall  may reside between an NFS client and server, or the client
       or server may block some of its own ports via IP filter rules.   It  is
       still  possible  to mount an NFS server through a firewall, though some
       of the mount(8) command's automatic service endpoint  discovery  mecha-
       nisms  may not work; this requires you to provide specific endpoint de-
       tails via NFS mount options.

       NFS servers normally run a portmapper or rpcbind  daemon  to  advertise
       their  service  endpoints to clients. Clients use the rpcbind daemon to
       determine:

              What network port each RPC-based service is using

              What transport protocols each RPC-based service supports

       The rpcbind daemon uses a well-known port number (111) to help  clients
       find  a service endpoint.  Although NFS often uses a standard port num-
       ber (2049), auxiliary services such as the NLM service can  choose  any
       unused port number at random.

       Common  firewall  configurations block the well-known rpcbind port.  In
       the absense of an rpcbind service, the server administrator  fixes  the
       port  number of NFS-related services so that the firewall can allow ac-
       cess to specific NFS service ports.  Client administrators then specify
       the  port  number  for  the  mountd  service via the mount(8) command's
       mountport option.  It may also be necessary to enforce the use  of  TCP
       or UDP if the firewall blocks one of those transports.

   NFS Access Control Lists
       Solaris allows NFS version 3 clients direct access to POSIX Access Con-
       trol Lists stored in its local file systems.  This proprietary sideband
       protocol,  known  as  NFSACL,  provides richer access control than mode
       bits.  Linux implements this protocol for compatibility  with  the  So-
       laris  NFS implementation.  The NFSACL protocol never became a standard
       part of the NFS version 3 specification, however.

       The NFS version 4 specification mandates a new version of  Access  Con-
       trol Lists that are semantically richer than POSIX ACLs.  NFS version 4
       ACLs are not fully compatible with POSIX ACLs; as such,  some  transla-
       tion  between  the  two  is required in an environment that mixes POSIX
       ACLs and NFS version 4.

THE REMOUNT OPTION
       Generic mount options such as rw and sync can be modified on NFS  mount
       points  using the remount option.  See mount(8) for more information on
       generic mount options.

       With few exceptions, NFS-specific options are not able to  be  modified
       during  a  remount.   The underlying transport or NFS version cannot be
       changed by a remount, for example.

       Performing a remount on an NFS file system mounted with the noac option
       may  have unintended consequences.  The noac option is a combination of
       the generic option sync, and the NFS-specific option actimeo=0.

   Unmounting after a remount
       For mount points that use NFS versions 2 or 3, the NFS  umount  subcom-
       mand  depends on knowing the original set of mount options used to per-
       form the MNT operation.  These options are stored on disk  by  the  NFS
       mount subcommand, and can be erased by a remount.

       To ensure that the saved mount options are not erased during a remount,
       specify either the local mount directory, or the  server  hostname  and
       export pathname, but not both, during a remount.  For example,

               mount -o remount,ro /mnt

       merges the mount option ro with the mount options already saved on disk
       for the NFS server mounted at /mnt.

FILES
       /etc/fstab     file system table

       /etc/nfsmount.conf
                      Configuration file for NFS mounts

NOTES
       Before 2.4.7, the Linux NFS client did not support NFS over TCP.

       Before 2.4.20, the Linux NFS  client  used  a  heuristic  to  determine
       whether cached file data was still valid rather than using the standard
       close-to-open cache coherency method described above.

       Starting with 2.4.22, the Linux NFS client employs a Van Jacobsen-based
       RTT  estimator  to  determine  retransmit timeout values when using NFS
       over UDP.

       Before 2.6.0, the Linux NFS client did not support NFS version 4.

       Before 2.6.8, the Linux NFS client  used  only  synchronous  reads  and
       writes when the rsize and wsize settings were smaller than the system's
       page size.

       The Linux client's support for protocol versions depend on whether  the
       kernel  was  built  with  options  CONFIG_NFS_V2,  CONFIG_NFS_V3,  CON-
       FIG_NFS_V4, CONFIG_NFS_V4_1, and CONFIG_NFS_V4_2.

SEE ALSO
       fstab(5), mount(8), umount(8), mount.nfs(5), umount.nfs(5), exports(5),
       nfsmount.conf(5),   netconfig(5),   ipv6(7),   nfsd(8),   sm-notify(8),
       rpc.statd(8), rpc.idmapd(8), rpc.gssd(8), rpc.svcgssd(8), kerberos(1)

       RFC 768 for the UDP specification.
       RFC 793 for the TCP specification.
       RFC 1813 for the NFS version 3 specification.
       RFC 1832 for the XDR specification.
       RFC 1833 for the RPC bind specification.
       RFC 2203 for the RPCSEC GSS API protocol specification.
       RFC 7530 for the NFS version 4.0 specification.
       RFC 5661 for the NFS version 4.1 specification.
       RFC 7862 for the NFS version 4.2 specification.

                                9 October 2012                          NFS(5)

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