Re: regarding support of NFS versions

[Matthias Petermann <matthias%d2ux.net@localhost>]

Hi,

On 4/24/26 17:43, Edgar Fuß wrote:
> For a long time, I've been looking for an NFSv4 server for NetBSD, and, failing to find one, thinking about writing one.
>
> Does anyone know more about NFSv4 than "largely improved NFS with Kerberos
> support"?
> Does anyone know more about Kerberos that "centralized authentication
> service handing out signed authentication tickets for services"?
>
> Is it possible to have a v4-only server or does some part of the protocol
> fall back to v3?
>
> What I have in mind is to have a privilledged login process doing the
> authentication and forking off a worker process running under the
> logged in user's credentials and thus have the kernel do all nifty
> permission checking.
>
> Is someone familiar enough with NFSv4/Kerberos to immediately point out
> to me why that can't possibly work?

Lately I did ask myself similiar questions, then I found that under 
doc/roadmaps/storage in netbsd-src:

"2. nfsv4 support
----------------

nfsv4 is at this point the de facto standard for FS-level (as opposed
to block-level) network volumes in production settings. The legacy nfs
code currently in NetBSD only supports nfsv2 and nfsv3.

The intended plan is to port FreeBSD's nfsv4 code, which also includes
nfsv2 and nfsv3 support, and eventually transition to it completely,
dropping our current nfs code. (Which is kind of a mess.) So far the
only step that has been taken is to import the code from FreeBSD. The
next step is to update that import (since it was done a while ago now)
and then work on getting it to configure and compile.

 - As of January 2017 pgoyette has done a bit of prodding of the code
   recently, but otherwise nobody is working on this, and a volunteer to
   take charge and move it forward rapidly is urgently needed.
 - There is no clear timeframe or release target, although having an
   experimental version ready for -8 would be great.
 - Contact dholland for further information.
"

So there is likely something in the Kernel/Source already which could be 
built on.

Best regards
Matthias



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