What's New With the NFS Service

This section provides information about new features in releases of the Oracle Solaris OS.

Changes in This Release

The following enhancements are included in the Oracle Solaris 11 release:

• The configuration parameters that used to be set by editing the /etc/default/autofs and /etc/default/nfs can now be set in the SMF repository. See the descriptions of the new SMF parameters in procedures that use them, as well as the descriptions of the daemons that use them:

  • automount Command

  • automountd Daemon

  • lockd Daemon

  • mountd Daemon

  • nfsd Daemon

  • nfsmapid Daemon

• The NFS service provides support for mirror mounts. Mirror mounts enable an NFSv4 client to traverse shared file system mount points in the server namespace. For NFSv4 mounts, the automounter will perform a mount of the server namespace root and rely on mirror mounts to access its file systems. The main advantage that mirror mounts offer over the traditional automounter is that mounting a file system using mirror mounts does not require the overhead associated with administering automount maps. Mirror mounts provide these features:

  • Namespace changes are immediately visible to all clients.

  • New shared file systems are discovered instantly and mounted automatically.

  • File systems unmount automatically after a designated inactivity period.

  For more information about mirror mounts, refer to the following:

  • How to Mount All File Systems from a Server

  • How Mirror Mounts Work

• NFS referrals have been added to the NFS service. Referrals are server-based redirections that an NFSv4 client can follow to find a file system. The NFS server supports referrals created by the nfsref(1M)command, and the NFSv4 client will follow them to mount the file system from the actual location. This facility can be used to replace many uses of the automounter, with creation of referrals replacing the editing of automounter map. NFS referrals provide these features:

  • All of the features of mirror mounts listed above

  • Automounter-like functionality without any dependence on the automounter.

  • No setup required at either the client or server.

  For more information about NFS referrals, see:

  • Administering NFS Referrals

  • How NFS Referrals Work

• The ability to mount the per-DNS-domain root of a Federated File System name space has been added. This mount point can be used with NFS referrals to bridge from one file server to another, building an arbitrarily large namespace. For more information see:

  • Setting up a DNS Record for a Federated File System Server

  • Mount Point /nfs4

• The sharectl utility is included. This utility enables you to configure and manage file sharing protocols, such as NFS. For example, this utility allows you to set client and server operational properties, display property values for a specific protocol, and obtain the status of a protocol. For more information, see the sharectl(1M) man page and sharectl Command.

• The NFS version 4 domain can be defined. See Configuring an NFS Version 4 Default Domain in the Oracle Solaris 11 Release for more information.

Significant Changes in Earlier Releases

The Solaris 10 11/06 release provides support for a file system monitoring tool. See the following:

• fsstat Command for a description and examples

• fsstat(1M) man page for more information

Additionally, this guide provides a more detailed description of the nfsmapid daemon. For information about nfsmapid, see the following:

• nfsmapid Daemon

• nfsmapid(1M) man page

Starting in the Solaris 10 release, NFS version 4 is the default. For information about features in NFS version 4 and other changes, refer to the following:

• NFS Version 4 Protocol

• lockd Daemon

• nfs4cbd Daemon

• nfsmapid Daemon

• mount Options for NFS File Systems

• NFS Over RDMA

• Version Negotiation in NFS

• Features in NFS Version 4

• How Autofs Selects the Nearest Read-Only Files for Clients (Multiple Locations)

Also, see Setting Up NFS Services for task information.

Additionally, the NFS service is managed by the Service Management Facility. Administrative actions on this service, such as enabling, disabling, or restarting, can be performed by using the svcadm command. The service's status can be queried by using the svcs command. For more information about the Service Management Facility, refer to the smf(5) man page and Chapter 6, Managing Services (Overview), in Oracle Solaris Administration: Common Tasks.