--- /dev/null
+
+The NFS client
+==============
+
+The NFS version 2 protocol was first documented in RFC1094 (March 1989).
+Since then two more major releases of NFS have been published, with NFSv3
+being documented in RFC1813 (June 1995), and NFSv4 in RFC3530 (April
+2003).
+
+The Linux NFS client currently supports all the above published versions,
+and work is in progress on adding support for minor version 1 of the NFSv4
+protocol.
+
+The purpose of this document is to provide information on some of the
+special features of the NFS client that can be configured by system
+administrators.
+
+
+The nfs4_unique_id parameter
+============================
+
+NFSv4 requires clients to identify themselves to servers with a unique
+string. File open and lock state shared between one client and one server
+is associated with this identity. To support robust NFSv4 state recovery
+and transparent state migration, this identity string must not change
+across client reboots.
+
+Without any other intervention, the Linux client uses a string that contains
+the local system's node name. System administrators, however, often do not
+take care to ensure that node names are fully qualified and do not change
+over the lifetime of a client system. Node names can have other
+administrative requirements that require particular behavior that does not
+work well as part of an nfs_client_id4 string.
+
+The nfs.nfs4_unique_id boot parameter specifies a unique string that can be
+used instead of a system's node name when an NFS client identifies itself to
+a server. Thus, if the system's node name is not unique, or it changes, its
+nfs.nfs4_unique_id stays the same, preventing collision with other clients
+or loss of state during NFS reboot recovery or transparent state migration.
+
+The nfs.nfs4_unique_id string is typically a UUID, though it can contain
+anything that is believed to be unique across all NFS clients. An
+nfs4_unique_id string should be chosen when a client system is installed,
+just as a system's root file system gets a fresh UUID in its label at
+install time.
+
+The string should remain fixed for the lifetime of the client. It can be
+changed safely if care is taken that the client shuts down cleanly and all
+outstanding NFSv4 state has expired, to prevent loss of NFSv4 state.
+
+This string can be stored in an NFS client's grub.conf, or it can be provided
+via a net boot facility such as PXE. It may also be specified as an nfs.ko
+module parameter. Specifying a uniquifier string is not support for NFS
+clients running in containers.
+
+
+The DNS resolver
+================
+
+NFSv4 allows for one server to refer the NFS client to data that has been
+migrated onto another server by means of the special "fs_locations"
+attribute. See
+ http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3530#section-6
+and
+ http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-nfsv4-referrals-00
+
+The fs_locations information can take the form of either an ip address and
+a path, or a DNS hostname and a path. The latter requires the NFS client to
+do a DNS lookup in order to mount the new volume, and hence the need for an
+upcall to allow userland to provide this service.
+
+Assuming that the user has the 'rpc_pipefs' filesystem mounted in the usual
+/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs, the upcall consists of the following steps:
+
+ (1) The process checks the dns_resolve cache to see if it contains a
+ valid entry. If so, it returns that entry and exits.
+
+ (2) If no valid entry exists, the helper script '/sbin/nfs_cache_getent'
+ (may be changed using the 'nfs.cache_getent' kernel boot parameter)
+ is run, with two arguments:
+ - the cache name, "dns_resolve"
+ - the hostname to resolve
+
+ (3) After looking up the corresponding ip address, the helper script
+ writes the result into the rpc_pipefs pseudo-file
+ '/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs/cache/dns_resolve/channel'
+ in the following (text) format:
+
+ "<ip address> <hostname> <ttl>\n"
+
+ Where <ip address> is in the usual IPv4 (123.456.78.90) or IPv6
+ (ffee:ddcc:bbaa:9988:7766:5544:3322:1100, ffee::1100, ...) format.
+ <hostname> is identical to the second argument of the helper
+ script, and <ttl> is the 'time to live' of this cache entry (in
+ units of seconds).
+
+ Note: If <ip address> is invalid, say the string "0", then a negative
+ entry is created, which will cause the kernel to treat the hostname
+ as having no valid DNS translation.
+
+
+
+
+A basic sample /sbin/nfs_cache_getent
+=====================================
+
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+ttl=600
+#
+cut=/usr/bin/cut
+getent=/usr/bin/getent
+rpc_pipefs=/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs
+#
+die()
+{
+ echo "Usage: $0 cache_name entry_name"
+ exit 1
+}
+
+[ $# -lt 2 ] && die
+cachename="$1"
+cache_path=${rpc_pipefs}/cache/${cachename}/channel
+
+case "${cachename}" in
+ dns_resolve)
+ name="$2"
+ result="$(${getent} hosts ${name} | ${cut} -f1 -d\ )"
+ [ -z "${result}" ] && result="0"
+ ;;
+ *)
+ die
+ ;;
+esac
+echo "${result} ${name} ${ttl}" >${cache_path}
+
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