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Tuning networking resources

NFS resources

The Network File System (NFS) software allows one computer (an NFS client) attached to a network to access the filesystems present on the hard disk of another computer (an NFS server) on the network. An NFS client can mount the whole or part of a remote filesystem. It can then access the files in this filesystem almost as if they were present on a local hard disk.

The speed of access to data is designed to approach that achievable using the server's hard disk directly. The performance of NFS is limited by:

In practice, NFS servers feel the greatest stress. NFS client performance is directly dependent on the performance of the server and the network so you should examine these subsystems first if you experience poor client response.

Schematic diagram of how NFS works


The mechanism by which NFS is implemented is illustrated in ``Schematic diagram of how NFS works''. This figure shows a simplified version of how NFS operates and also illustrates the main features that affect performance. The NFS client is shown at the left-hand side; the NFS server with its local disk to the right. All the subsystems in the path traced between the application program running on the client and the disk on the server directly affect performance.

As for TCP/IP, NFS has been configured in this release to maximize performance. However, you may be able to further increase performance based on your system's needs.

Because NFS depends directly on STREAMS and TCP/IP resources, its performance is directly influenced by these subsystems. See ``STREAMS resources'' and ``TCP/IP resources'' for more information about examining the performance of these subsystems.

See also:



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© 2003 Caldera International, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 -- 11 February 2003