Network File System (NFS)

Network File System (NFS)
Among the many different file systems that FreeBSD supports is the Network File System, also known as NFS. NFS allows a system to share directories and files with others over a network. By using NFS, users and programs can access files on remote systems almost as if they were local files.
Some of the most notable benefits that NFS can provide are:

1. Local workstations use less disk space because commonly used data can be stored on a single machine and still remain accessible to others over the network.


2. There is no need for users to have separate home directories on every network machine. Home directories could be set up on the NFS server and made available throughout the network.


3. Storage devices such as floppy disks, CDROM drives, and Zip® drives can be used by other machines on the network. This may reduce the number of removable media drives throughout the network.

How NFS Works
NFS consists of at least two main parts: a server and one or more clients. The client remotely accesses the data that is stored on the server machine. In order for this to function properly a few processes have to be configured and running.
The server has to be running the following daemons:
nfsd: The NFS daemon which services requests from the NFS clients.mountd: The NFS mount daemon which carries out the requests that nfsd(8) passes on to it.rpcbind: This daemon allows NFS clients to discover which port the NFS server is using.
The client can also run a daemon, known as nfsiod. The nfsiod daemon services the requests from the NFS server. This is optional, and improves performance, but is not required for normal and correct operation. See the nfsiod(8) manual page for more information.
More detail could be found on the page
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-nfs.html