NFS

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (5)
Updated: 20 November 1993
 

NAME

nfs - nfs and nfs4 fstab format and options  

SYNOPSIS

/etc/fstab  

DESCRIPTION

The fstab file contains information about which filesystems to mount where and with what options. For NFS mounts, it contains the server name and exported server directory to mount from, the local directory that is the mount point, and the NFS specific options that control the way the filesystem is mounted. Three different versions of the NFS protocol are supported by the Linux NFS client: NFS version 2, NFS version 3, and NFS version 4. To mount via NFS version 2, use the nfs file system type and specify nfsvers=2. Version 2 is the default protocol version for the nfs file system type when nfsvers= is not specified on the mount command. To mount via NFS version 3, use the nfs file system type and specify nfsvers=3. To mount via NFS version 4, use the nfs4 file system type. The nfsvers= keyword is not supported for the nfs4 file system type. These file system types share similar mount options; the differences are listed below. Here is an example from an /etc/fstab file for an NFSv2 mount over UDP. 


server:/usr/local/pub    /pub    nfs     rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr
Here is an example for an NFSv4 mount over TCP using Kerberos 5 mutual authentication. 


server:/usr/local/pub    /pub    nfs4    proto=tcp,sec=krb5,hard,intr
 

Options for the nfs file system type

rsize=n
The number of bytes NFS uses when reading files from an NFS server. The default value is dependent on the kernel, currently 1024 bytes. (However, throughput is improved greatly by asking for rsize=8192.)
wsize=n
The number of bytes NFS uses when writing files to an NFS server. The default value is dependent on the kernel, currently 1024 bytes. (However, throughput is improved greatly by asking for wsize=8192.)
timeo=n
The value in tenths of a second before sending the first retransmission after an RPC timeout. The default value is 7 tenths of a second. After the first timeout, the timeout is doubled after each successive timeout until a maximum timeout of 60 seconds is reached or the enough retransmissions have occured to cause a major timeout. Then, if the filesystem is hard mounted, each new timeout cascade restarts at twice the initial value of the previous cascade, again doubling at each retransmission. The maximum timeout is always 60 seconds. Better overall performance may be achieved by increasing the timeout when mounting on a busy network, to a slow server, or through several routers or gateways.
retrans=n
The number of minor timeouts and retransmissions that must occur before a major timeout occurs. The default is 3 timeouts. When a major timeout occurs, the file operation is either aborted or a "server not responding" message is printed on the console.
acregmin=n
The minimum time in seconds that attributes of a regular file should be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 3 seconds.
acregmax=n
The maximum time in seconds that attributes of a regular file can be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 60 seconds.
acdirmin=n
The minimum time in seconds that attributes of a directory should be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 30 seconds.
acdirmax=n
The maximum time in seconds that attributes of a directory can be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 60 seconds.
actimeo=n
Using actimeo sets all of acregmin, acregmax, acdirmin, and acdirmax to the same value. There is no default value.
retry=n
The number of minutes to retry an NFS mount operation in the foreground or background before giving up. The default value is 10000 minutes, which is roughly one week.
namlen=n
When an NFS server does not support version two of the RPC mount protocol, this option can be used to specify the maximum length of a filename that is supported on the remote filesystem. This is used to support the POSIX pathconf functions. The default is 255 characters.
port=n
The numeric value of the port to connect to the NFS server on. If the port number is 0 (the default) then query the remote host's portmapper for the port number to use. If the remote host's NFS daemon is not registered with its portmapper, the standard NFS port number 2049 is used instead.
mountport=n
The numeric value of the mountd port.
mounthost=name
The name of the host running mountd .
mountprog=n
Use an alternate RPC program number to contact the mount daemon on the remote host. This option is useful for hosts that can run multiple NFS servers. The default value is 100005 which is the standard RPC mount daemon program number.
mountvers=n
Use an alternate RPC version number to contact the mount daemon on the remote host. This option is useful for hosts that can run multiple NFS servers. The default value depends on which kernel you are using.
nfsprog=n
Use an alternate RPC program number to contact the NFS daemon on the remote host. This option is useful for hosts that can run multiple NFS servers. The default value is 100003 which is the standard RPC NFS daemon program number.
nfsvers=n
Use an alternate RPC version number to contact the NFS daemon on the remote host. This option is useful for hosts that can run multiple NFS servers. The default value depends on which kernel you are using.
nolock
Disable NFS locking. Do not start lockd. This has to be used with some old NFS servers that don't support locking.
bg
If the first NFS mount attempt times out, retry the mount in the background. After a mount operation is backgrounded, all subsequent mounts on the same NFS server will be backgrounded immediately, without first attempting the mount. A missing mount point is treated as a timeout, to allow for nested NFS mounts.
fg
If the first NFS mount attempt times out, retry the mount in the foreground. This is the complement of the bg option, and also the default behavior.
soft
If an NFS file operation has a major timeout then report an I/O error to the calling program. The default is to continue retrying NFS file operations indefinitely.
hard
If an NFS file operation has a major timeout then report "server not responding" on the console and continue retrying indefinitely. This is the default.
intr
If an NFS file operation has a major timeout and it is hard mounted, then allow signals to interupt the file operation and cause it to return EINTR to the calling program. The default is to not allow file operations to be interrupted.
posix
Mount the NFS filesystem using POSIX semantics. This allows an NFS filesystem to properly support the POSIX pathconf command by querying the mount server for the maximum length of a filename. To do this, the remote host must support version two of the RPC mount protocol. Many NFS servers support only version one.
nocto
Suppress the retrieval of new attributes when creating a file.
noac
Disable all forms of attribute caching entirely. This extracts a significant performance penalty but it allows two different NFS clients to get reasonable results when both clients are actively writing to a common export on the server.
sec=mode
Set the security flavor for this mount to "mode". The default setting is sec=sys, which uses local unix uids and gids to authenticate NFS operations (AUTH_SYS). Other currently supported settings are: sec=krb5, which uses Kerberos V5 instead of local unix uids and gids to authenticate users; sec=krb5i, which uses Kerberos V5 for user authentication and performs integrity checking of NFS operations using secure checksums to prevent data tampering; and sec=krb5p, which uses Kerberos V5 for user authentication and integrity checking, and encrypts NFS traffic to prevent traffic sniffing (this is the most secure setting). Note that there is a performance penalty when using integrity or privacy.
tcp
Mount the NFS filesystem using the TCP protocol instead of the default UDP protocol. Many NFS servers only support UDP.
udp
Mount the NFS filesystem using the UDP protocol. This is the default. All of the non-value options have corresponding nooption forms. For example, nointr means don't allow file operations to be interrupted.
 

Options for the nfs4 file system type

rsize=n
The number of bytes NFS uses when reading files from an NFS server. The default value is dependent on the kernel, currently 4096 bytes. (However, throughput is improved greatly by asking for rsize=32768.) This value is negotiated with the server.
wsize=n
The number of bytes NFS uses when writing files to an NFS server. The default value is dependent on the kernel, currently 4096 bytes. (However, throughput is improved greatly by asking for wsize=32768.) This value is negotiated with the server.
timeo=n
The value in tenths of a second before sending the first retransmission after an RPC timeout. The default value depends on whether proto=udp or proto=tcp is in effect (see below). The default value for UDP is 7 tenths of a second. The default value for TCP is 60 seconds. After the first timeout, the timeout is doubled after each successive timeout until a maximum timeout of 60 seconds is reached or the enough retransmissions have occured to cause a major timeout. Then, if the filesystem is hard mounted, each new timeout cascade restarts at twice the initial value of the previous cascade, again doubling at each retransmission. The maximum timeout is always 60 seconds.
retrans=n
The number of minor timeouts and retransmissions that must occur before a major timeout occurs. The default is 5 timeouts for proto=udp and 2 timeouts for proto=tcp. When a major timeout occurs, the file operation is either aborted or a "server not responding" message is printed on the console.
acregmin=n
The minimum time in seconds that attributes of a regular file should be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 3 seconds.
acregmax=n
The maximum time in seconds that attributes of a regular file can be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 60 seconds.
acdirmin=n
The minimum time in seconds that attributes of a directory should be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 30 seconds.
acdirmax=n
The maximum time in seconds that attributes of a directory can be cached before requesting fresh information from a server. The default is 60 seconds.
actimeo=n
Using actimeo sets all of acregmin, acregmax, acdirmin, and acdirmax to the same value. There is no default value.
retry=n
The number of minutes to retry an NFS mount operation in the foreground or background before giving up. The default value is 10000 minutes, which is roughly one week.
port=n
The numeric value of the port to connect to the NFS server on. If the port number is 0 (the default) then query the remote host's portmapper for the port number to use. If the remote host's NFS daemon is not registered with its portmapper, the standard NFS port number 2049 is used instead.
proto=n
Mount the NFS filesystem using a specific network protocol instead of the default UDP protocol. Many NFS version 4 servers only support TCP. Valid protocol types are udp and tcp.
clientaddr=n
On a multi-homed client, this causes the client to use a specific callback address when communicating with an NFS version 4 server. This option is currently ignored.
sec=mode
Same as sec=mode for the nfs filesystem type (see above).
bg
If an NFS mount attempt times out, retry the mount in the background. After a mount operation is backgrounded, all subsequent mounts on the same NFS server will be backgrounded immediately, without first attempting the mount. A missing mount point is treated as a timeout, to allow for nested NFS mounts.
fg
If the first NFS mount attempt times out, retry the mount in the foreground. This is the complement of the bg option, and also the default behavior.
soft
If an NFS file operation has a major timeout then report an I/O error to the calling program. The default is to continue retrying NFS file operations indefinitely.
hard
If an NFS file operation has a major timeout then report "server not responding" on the console and continue retrying indefinitely. This is the default.
intr
If an NFS file operation has a major timeout and it is hard mounted, then allow signals to interupt the file operation and cause it to return EINTR to the calling program. The default is to not allow file operations to be interrupted.
nocto
Suppress the retrieval of new attributes when creating a file.
noac
Disable attribute caching, and force synchronous writes. This extracts a server performance penalty but it allows two different NFS clients to get reasonable good results when both clients are actively writing to common filesystem on the server. All of the non-value options have corresponding nooption forms. For example, nointr means don't allow file operations to be interrupted.
 

FILES

/etc/fstab  

SEE ALSO

fstab(5), mount(8), umount(8), exports(5)  

AUTHOR

"Rick Sladkey" <jrs@world.std.com>  

BUGS

The posix, and nocto options are parsed by mount but currently are silently ignored. The tcp and namlen options are implemented but are not currently supported by the Linux kernel. The umount command should notify the server when an NFS filesystem is unmounted.

 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
Options for the nfs file system type
Options for the nfs4 file system type
FILES
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
BUGS