RFC 2054 (rfc2054) - Page 1 of 16

WebNFS Client Specification

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Network Working Group                                       B. Callaghan
Request for Comments: 2054                        Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Category: Informational                                     October 1996


                      WebNFS Client Specification

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document describes a lightweight binding mechanism that allows
   NFS clients to obtain service from WebNFS-enabled servers with a
   minimum of protocol overhead.  In removing this overhead, WebNFS
   clients see benefits in faster response to requests, easy transit of
   packet filter firewalls and TCP-based proxies, and better server
   scalability.

Table of Contents

   1.    Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   2.    TCP vs UDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   3.    Well-known Port  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   4.    NFS Version 3  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   4.1     Transfer Size  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   4.2     Fast Writes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   4.3     READDIRPLUS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   5.    Public Filehandle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   5.1     NFS Version 2 Public Filehandle  . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   5.2     NFS Version 3 Public Filehandle  . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   6.    Multi-component Lookup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   6.1     Canonical Path vs. Native Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   6.2     Symbolic Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   6.2.1     Absolute Link  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   6.2.2     Relative Link  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   6.3     Filesystem Spanning Pathnames  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
   7.    Contacting the Server  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
   8.    Mount Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   9.    Exploiting Concurrency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   9.1     Read-ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   9.2     Concurrent File Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   10.   Timeout and Retransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   11.   Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   12.   Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16



Callaghan                    Informational
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