About the WebNFS Protocol

The WebNFS protocol was designed to overcome some of the drawbacks to using NFS over an Internet connection. A WebNFS server implements the following features:

• Supports TCP transport - Firewalls can be easily configured for protocols that use TCP on well-known ports.

• Supports NFS v3 - NFS version 3 overcomes a number of limitations in version 2. It allows users to access larger files and larger transfer sizes. This results in much faster file access operations across a network.

• Supports the use of a well-known port - Clients can skip the Portmapper protocol and communicate directly with the server on port 2049.

• Exports files using a public file handle - A WebNFS server makes files available to clients with a public file handle. A WebNFS client uses this as an initial file handle to access files and directories, bypassing the Mount protocol.

• Supports multicomponent lookup - A WebNFS server can evaluate an entire path name with a single request when the path name is relative to the public file handle.

The Solaris 2.6 server is a WebNFS server.