NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Introduction
Network File System (NFS)
Chapter 1 19
Network File System (NFS)
The Network File System (NFS) is a distributed filesystem that provides
transparent access to files and directories that are shared by remote
systems. It enables you to centralize the administration of these files and
directories. NFS provides a single copy of the directory that can be
shared by all the systems on the network, instead of duplicating common
directories, such as /usr/local on each system.
How NFS works
The NFS environment consists of the following components:
•NFS Services
• NFS Shared Filesystems
•NFS Servers and Clients
NFS Services
The NFS services is a collection of daemons and kernel components, and
commands that enable systems with different architectures running
different operating systems to share filesystems across a network. The
physical location of the filesystem does not affect the NFS services. The
NFS services enable you to place a copy of the filesystem on an NFS
server and allow all other systems, or a subset of systems in the network
to access it.
NFS Shared Filesystems
Filesystems that are shared between an NFS server and an NFS client
across a network are known as NFS filesystems. The shared filesystem
can refer to an entire file hierarchy, or a single file.
NFS Servers and Clients
In the NFS context, a system that shares its filesystems over a network
is known as a server, and a system that mounts and accesses these
shared filesystems is known as a client. The NFS service enables a
system to access a filesystem located on a remote system.