Internet Engineering Task Force

Network File System Version 4 (nfsv4)

Last Modified: 2010-03-25

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/nfsv4

Chair(s):

Transport Area Director(s):

Description of Working Group:

NFS Version 4 is the IETF standard for file sharing. To maintain NFS
Version 4's utility and currency, the working group is chartered to (1)
maintain the existing NFSv4, NFSv4.1 and related specifications, such
as RPC and XDR, (2) progress these specifications along the standards
track, (3) develop a protocol to create a federated namespace using
NFSv4's existing referral mechanisms.

(1) NFS version 4.0 maintenance

Under this charter item, the WG correct errors and ambiguities in the
protocol currently specified in RFC 3530 and advances it along the
standards track. Extensions of any other kind are out of scope under
this charter item.

(2) NFS Version 4.1 Maintenance

As with NFSv4.0, the WG will address errors or ambiguities in the
NFSv4.1 protocol and related specifications in support of progressing
implementations.

(3) RPC and XDR protocol maintenance

The NFSv4 protocol depends on two related specifications: ONC
RPC and XDR. Similar to charter item (1), the WG may correct errors and
ambiguities in the ONC RPC and XDR protocols currently specified by RFCs
1831, 1833 and 2203. In conjunction with the advancement of the NFSv4
specification along the standards track, the WG will also work on the
advancements of its ONC RPC and XDR dependencies. The WG will also
update the ONC RPC specification for compatibility with IPv6.
Additionally, it will create an IANA registry for RPC program numbers
and seed it with a registry Sun has been maintaining.

(4) Federated Namespace

The NFSv4 protocol provides a referral mechanism that allows a
server to redirect a client to another server. The working group
will produce documents describing a mechanism for creating a federated
namespace (single global name space for a set of NFSv4 servers)
using the NFSv4 protocol's referral capabilities. The file system
federation protocol will enable file access and namespace traversal
across collections of independently administered fileservers. No
modifications will be made to the NFS client to server protocol.

Goals and Milestones:

Done		Issue strawman Internet-Draft for v4
Done		Submit Initial Internet-Draft of requirements document
Done		Submit Final Internet-Draft of requirements document
Done		AD reassesses WG charter
Done		Submit v4 Internet-Draft sufficient to begin prototype implementations
Done		Begin Interoperability testing of prototype implementations
Done		Submit NFS version 4 to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.
Done		Conduct final Interoperability tests
Done		Conduct full Interoperability tests for all NFSv4 features
Done		Update API advancement draft
Done		Form core design team to work on NFS V4 migration/replication requirements and protocol
Done		Submit revised NFS Version 4 specification (revision to RFC 3010) to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard
Done		Strawman NFS V4 replication/migration protocol proposal submitted as an ID
Done		WG Last Call for RPC and NFS RDMA drafts
Done		WG Last Call for rfc1831bis (RPC version 2)
Done		WG Last Call for NFSv4.1 Object-based layout
Done		WG Last Call for NFSv4 minor version 1
Done		WG Last Call for NFSv4.1 block/volume layout
Done		Submit NFS Minor Version 1 to IESG for publication as a Proposed Standard
Done		Submit Object-based pNFS Operations to IESG for publication as a Proposed Standard
Done		Submit pNFS Block/Volume Layout to IESG for publication as a Proposed Standard
May 2009		WG Last Call for Requirements for Federated File Systems draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-reqts-01
Sep 2009		WG Last Call for rfc3530bis (NFS version 4)
Oct 2009		WG Last Call for Administration Protocol for Federated Filesystems draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-admin-00.txt
Oct 2009		WG Last Call for NSDB Protocol for Federated Filesystems draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-protocol-00.txt

Internet-Drafts:

Using DNS SRV to Specify a Global File Name Space with NFS version 4 (25414 bytes)
Administration Protocol for Federated Filesystems (73192 bytes)
NSDB Protocol for Federated Filesystems (122453 bytes)
Network File System (NFS) Version 4 External Data Representation Standard (XDR) Description (65444 bytes)
Network File System (NFS) Version 4 Protocol (760800 bytes)
Requirements for NFSv4.2 (21303 bytes)
pNFS Access Permissions Check (26170 bytes)
NFS operation over IPv6 (13796 bytes)
NFS operation over IPv4 and IPv6 (27010 bytes)

Request For Comments:

NFS Version 2 and Version 3 Security Issues and the NFS Protocol's Use of RPCSEC_GSS and Kerberos V5 (RFC 2623) (42521 bytes)
NFS Version 4 Design Considerations (RFC 2624) (52891 bytes)
NFS version 4 (RFC 3010) (450434 bytes) obsoletes RFC 1813,RFC 1094/ obsoleted by RFC 3530
Network File System (NFS) version 4 Protocol (RFC 3530) (600986 bytes) obsoletes RFC 3010
XDR: External Data Representation Standard (RFC 4506) (55477 bytes)
RPCSEC_GSS Version 2 (RFC 5403) (30812 bytes) updates RFC 2203
RPC: Remote Procedure Call Protocol Specification Version 2 (RFC 5531) (161720 bytes) obsoletes RFC 1831
Network File System (NFS) Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) Problem Statement (RFC 5532) (36746 bytes)
Network File System (NFS) Direct Data Placement (RFC 5667) (23739 bytes)
Remote Direct Memory Access Transport for Remote Procedure Call (RFC 5666) (83728 bytes)
IANA Considerations for Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Network Identifiers and Universal Address Formats (RFC 5665) (28706 bytes) updates RFC 1833
Object-Based Parallel NFS (pNFS) Operations (RFC 5664) (78200 bytes)
Requirements for Federated File Systems (RFC 5716) (58051 bytes)
Network File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor Version 1 Protocol (RFC 5661) (1517771 bytes)
Parallel NFS (pNFS) Block/Volume Layout (RFC 5663) (68571 bytes)
Network File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor Version 1 External Data Representation Standard (XDR) Description (RFC 5662) (126581 bytes)