There is a deep interaction between file handles and the dentry -cache of the vfs. Without nfs, a filesystems can rely on the following +cache of the vfs. Without nfs, a filesystem can rely on the following "closure" property: For any positive dentry, all its parent directories are also positive dentries. This is no longer true if a filesystem is exported. Therefore the filesystem maps any file handles sent to @@ -1316,15 +1316,43 @@ operations. With close-to-open cache consistency the green client is guaranteed to see the write operation of the blue client while there is no such guarantee for the red client.
-SUBSECTION(«Delegations») - -nfs4 introduced a feature called file delegation. A file -delegation allows the client to treat a file temporarily as if no -other client is accessing it. Once a file has been delegated to a -client, the client might cache all write operations for this file, -and only contact the server when memory pressure forces the client -to free memory by writing back file contents. The server notifies -the client if another client attempts to access that file. +SUBSECTION(«File and Directory Delegations») + +nfs4 introduced a per-file state management feature called +file delegation. Once a file has been delegated to a client, +the server blocks write access to the file for other nfs clients and +for local processes. Therefore the client may assume that the file +does not change unexpectedly. This cache-coherency guarantee can +improve performance because the client may cache all write operations +for this file, and only contact the server when memory pressure forces +the client to free memory by writing back file contents.
+ + A drawback of file delegations is that they delay conflicting open
+requests by other clients because existing delegations must be recalled
+before the open request completes. This is particularly important if
+an nfs client which is holding a delegation gets disconnected from
+the network. To detect this condition, clients report to the server
+that they are still alive by periodically sending a RENEW
+request. If no such request has arrived for the lease time
+(typically 90 seconds), the server may recall any delegations it
+has granted to the disconnected client. This allows accesses from
+other clients that would normally be prevented because of the
+delegation.
However, the server is not obliged to recall uncontested +delegations for clients whose lease period has expired. In fact, +newer Linux NFS server implementations retain the uncontested +state of unresponsive clients for up to 24 hours. This so-called +courteous server feature was introduced in Linux-5.19 +(released in 2022).
+ +Let us finally remark that the delegations as discussed above +work only for regular files. NFS versions up to and including 4.0 +do not grant delegations for directories. With nfs4.1 an nfs client +may ask the server to be notified whenever changes are made to the +directory by another client. Among other benefits, this feature allows +for strong directory cache coherency. However, as of 2022, +directory delegations are not yet implemented by Linux.
SUBSECTION(«Silly Renames and Stale File Handles») @@ -1345,11 +1373,16 @@ is still open. Only after all the last file descriptor that refers to the thusly silly-renamed file is closed, the client removes the file by issuing an appropriate rpc. - This approach is not perfect. For one, if the client crashes,
-a stale .nfs12345 file remains on the server. Second,
-since silly renames are only known to the nfs client, bad things
-happen if a different client removes the file.
This approach is not perfect. For one, if the client crashes, a
+stale .nfs12345 file remains on the server. Second, since
+silly renames are only known to the nfs client, bad things happen if a
+different client removes the file. Finally, if an application running
+on a client removes the last regular file in a directory, and this
+file got silly-renamed because it was still held open, a subsequent
+rmdir will fail unexpectedly with Directory not
+empty. Version 4.1 of the NFS protocol finally got rid of
+silly renames: An NFS4.1 server knows when it its safe to unlink a
+file and communicates this information to the client.
The file handle which an nfs client received through some earlier rpc can become invalid at any time due to operations on a different @@ -1396,11 +1429,11 @@ EXERCISES()
collectl -s F -i 5 and discuss
the output. cat > foo &. Note
- that the cat process automatically receives the STOP signal.
- Run rm foo; ls -ltra. Read section D2 of the
- nfs HOWTO for the
- explanation. cat > foo &. Note that the cat process automatically
+ receives the STOP signal. Run rm foo; ls -ltra. Read
+ section D2 of the nfs HOWTO
+ for the explanation. { while :; do echo; sleep
1; done; } > baz &. What happens if you remove the file on a