1Reexporting NFS filesystems 2=========================== 3 4Overview 5-------- 6 7It is possible to reexport an NFS filesystem over NFS. However, this 8feature comes with a number of limitations. Before trying it, we 9recommend some careful research to determine whether it will work for 10your purposes. 11 12A discussion of current known limitations follows. 13 14"fsid=" required, crossmnt broken 15--------------------------------- 16 17We require the "fsid=" export option on any reexport of an NFS 18filesystem. You can use "uuidgen -r" to generate a unique argument. 19 20The "crossmnt" export does not propagate "fsid=", so it will not allow 21traversing into further nfs filesystems; if you wish to export nfs 22filesystems mounted under the exported filesystem, you'll need to export 23them explicitly, assigning each its own unique "fsid= option. 24 25Reboot recovery 26--------------- 27 28The NFS protocol's normal reboot recovery mechanisms don't work for the 29case when the reexport server reboots. Clients will lose any locks 30they held before the reboot, and further IO will result in errors. 31Closing and reopening files should clear the errors. 32 33Filehandle limits 34----------------- 35 36If the original server uses an X byte filehandle for a given object, the 37reexport server's filehandle for the reexported object will be X+22 38bytes, rounded up to the nearest multiple of four bytes. 39 40The result must fit into the RFC-mandated filehandle size limits: 41 42+-------+-----------+ 43| NFSv2 | 32 bytes | 44+-------+-----------+ 45| NFSv3 | 64 bytes | 46+-------+-----------+ 47| NFSv4 | 128 bytes | 48+-------+-----------+ 49 50So, for example, you will only be able to reexport a filesystem over 51NFSv2 if the original server gives you filehandles that fit in 10 52bytes--which is unlikely. 53 54In general there's no way to know the maximum filehandle size given out 55by an NFS server without asking the server vendor. 56 57But the following table gives a few examples. The first column is the 58typical length of the filehandle from a Linux server exporting the given 59filesystem, the second is the length after that nfs export is reexported 60by another Linux host: 61 62+--------+-------------------+----------------+ 63| | filehandle length | after reexport | 64+========+===================+================+ 65| ext4: | 28 bytes | 52 bytes | 66+--------+-------------------+----------------+ 67| xfs: | 32 bytes | 56 bytes | 68+--------+-------------------+----------------+ 69| btrfs: | 40 bytes | 64 bytes | 70+--------+-------------------+----------------+ 71 72All will therefore fit in an NFSv3 or NFSv4 filehandle after reexport, 73but none are reexportable over NFSv2. 74 75Linux server filehandles are a bit more complicated than this, though; 76for example: 77 78 - The (non-default) "subtreecheck" export option generally 79 requires another 4 to 8 bytes in the filehandle. 80 - If you export a subdirectory of a filesystem (instead of 81 exporting the filesystem root), that also usually adds 4 to 8 82 bytes. 83 - If you export over NFSv2, knfsd usually uses a shorter 84 filesystem identifier that saves 8 bytes. 85 - The root directory of an export uses a filehandle that is 86 shorter. 87 88As you can see, the 128-byte NFSv4 filehandle is large enough that 89you're unlikely to have trouble using NFSv4 to reexport any filesystem 90exported from a Linux server. In general, if the original server is 91something that also supports NFSv3, you're *probably* OK. Re-exporting 92over NFSv3 may be dicier, and reexporting over NFSv2 will probably 93never work. 94 95For more details of Linux filehandle structure, the best reference is 96the source code and comments; see in particular: 97 98 - include/linux/exportfs.h:enum fid_type 99 - include/uapi/linux/nfsd/nfsfh.h:struct nfs_fhbase_new 100 - fs/nfsd/nfsfh.c:set_version_and_fsid_type 101 - fs/nfs/export.c:nfs_encode_fh 102 103Open DENY bits ignored 104---------------------- 105 106NFS since NFSv4 supports ALLOW and DENY bits taken from Windows, which 107allow you, for example, to open a file in a mode which forbids other 108read opens or write opens. The Linux client doesn't use them, and the 109server's support has always been incomplete: they are enforced only 110against other NFS users, not against processes accessing the exported 111filesystem locally. A reexport server will also not pass them along to 112the original server, so they will not be enforced between clients of 113different reexport servers. 114