RFC 2624 (rfc2624) - Page 2 of 22
NFS Version 4 Design Considerations
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 2624 NFSv4 Design Considerations June 1999
Table of Contents
1. NFS Version 4 Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Ease of Implementation or Complexity of Protocol . . . . . . 3
2.1. Extensibility / layering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Managed Extensions or Minor Versioning . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Relationship with Older Versions of NFS . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Reliable and Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Scalable Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Throughput and Latency via the Network . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Client Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. Disconnected Client Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.1. Platform Specific Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. Additional or Extended Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.3. Access Control Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. RPC Mechanism and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1. User identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2. Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2.1. Transport Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.2.2. Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.2.3. Data Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.2.4. Data Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.2.5. Security Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.3. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. Internet Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.1. Congestion Control and Transport Selection . . . . . . . 13
7.2. Firewalls and Proxy Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.3. Multiple RPCs and Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8. File locking / recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9. Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10.1. Denial of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
11. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
12. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
13. Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
14. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1. NFS Version 4 Design Considerations
As stated in the charter, the first deliverable for the NFS version 4
working group is this design considerations document. This document
is to cover the "limitations and deficiencies of NFS version 3".
This document will also be used as a mechanism to focus discussion
and avenues of investigation as the definition of NFS version 4
progresses. Therefore, the contents of this document cover the
general functional/feature areas that are anticipated for NFS version
4. Where appropriate, discussion of current NFS version 2 and 3
Shepler Informational
