nfs-rs

An asynchronous, pure Rust client library for NFSv3, NFSv4.0, and NFSv4.1.

nfs-rs implements the NFS client protocol without linking to a C NFS implementation. It is intended for applications that need to access NFS exports directly from Rust, including services that cannot rely on a kernel-mounted filesystem.

Status

NFSv3 client operations are supported.
NFSv4.0 (experimental) is supported through the common Mount API using an AUTH_SYS interoperability profile. RPCSEC_GSS/Kerberos is not implemented, so this release does not claim unconditional RFC 7530 conformance.
NFSv4.1 client operations are supported.
NFSv4.2 may be accepted in a URL preference list but is not implemented.
The library uses Tokio and communicates with the server over TCP.
Linux is exercised by CI and by the physical NFS integration lab.

The public API is still evolving while the crate is below version 1.0.

Installation

[dependencies]
nfs-rs = "0.5"
bytes = "1"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["macros", "rt-multi-thread"] }

The minimum supported Rust version is 1.95.

For Python on Linux x86_64:

python -m pip install nfs-rs

See the Python API guide for synchronous and asyncio examples, typing, large-transfer guidance, cancellation and uncertain outcomes, and the precise first-release support boundaries.

Example

use bytes::Bytes;
use nfs_rs::{OPEN_READ, Result, parse_url_and_mount};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<()> {
    let mount = parse_url_and_mount(
        "nfs://127.0.0.1/some/export?version=4.1&noresvport=true",
    )
    .await?;

    let created = mount.create_path("hello.txt", Some(0o644)).await?;
    nfs_rs::write_all(&*mount, created.fh.clone(), 0, Bytes::from_static(b"hello NFS"))
        .await?;
    mount.close(created.fh).await?;

    let opened = mount.open_path("hello.txt", OPEN_READ).await?;
    let contents = mount.read(opened.fh.clone(), 0, 9).await?;
    mount.close(opened.fh).await?;
    assert_eq!(&contents[..], b"hello NFS");

    mount.umount().await?;
    Ok(())
}

URL format

nfs://<server|ipv4|ipv6>[:<port>]/path[?arg=value[&arg=value]*]

Supported arguments:

uid=<integer> — UID sent to the server. It defaults to the process UID on Unix and 65534 on Windows.
gid=<integer> — GID sent to the server. It defaults to the process GID on Unix and 65534 on Windows.
version=<3|4.0|4.1|4.2> — preferred protocol version or a comma-separated preference list such as 4.1,4.0,3. The default is 3. The exact 4.0 selector selects the experimental NFSv4.0 engine; ambiguous 4 is rejected. Version 4.2 is not currently implemented.
retain-delegations=true — opt into automatic delegation retention. It is disabled by default; NFSv4.0 publishes a separately reachable callback listener when enabled.
nfsport=<port> — NFS service port. This bypasses portmapper discovery.
mountport=<port> — MOUNT protocol port for NFSv3.
readdir-buffer=<count> or <dircount>,<maxcount> — response buffer limits for directory reads. Both values default to 8192.
noresvport=<true|false> — use an ephemeral source port when true. It defaults to false.

Read and write RPC sizes are determined automatically during mount from server limits, bounded by the client payload ceiling (4 MiB) and negotiated NFSv4.1 session capacities. URL and Python rsize/wsize options are no longer accepted. Python io_limits reports the effective mount limits; pNFS data servers may require smaller chunks.

BufferedFile provides bounded concurrent reads of the requested range and per-call durable writes. write_all and BufferedFile::write_at send at most 8 concurrent UNSTABLE chunks sized by negotiated max_write, complete short writes, then finish a batch commit before returning. There is no writeback mode or automatic byte threshold. Mount::write is the low-level UNSTABLE primitive. Its WriteOutcome exposes count, committed: WriteCommitted (Unstable, DataSync, or FileSync), and verifier. committed is the server's response, not the requested level; pNFS reports the weakest level across the contributing DS replies. Retain its acknowledgement for Mount::commit_write_batch, which also routes pNFS commits and completes required LAYOUTCOMMITs.

Python readinto(buffer) and readinto_at(buffer, offset) fill a caller-owned writable contiguous buffer using up to 8 concurrent, negotiated-size reads. Short responses are continued until the buffer is full or EOF is reached. They return the number of bytes filled and leave the tail beyond EOF untouched. There is no read-ahead cache or readahead option. Each RPC payload is copied once into the target, without an intermediate Python bytes object.

When noresvport=false, the client binds below port 1024 for servers enforcing the RFC 1813 secure-port convention. This may require elevated privileges. Setting noresvport=true avoids privileged-port exhaustion, but the NFS server must accept non-privileged source ports (the insecure export option on Linux).

NFSv4.0 migration notes

Use exact version=4.0; the ambiguous selector version=4 is invalid. Existing NFSv3 remains the default. NFSv4.0 uses the same public Mount methods as v3 and v4.1, but reports session and pNFS capabilities as unavailable. Delegation retention is optional and automatic; applications never handle raw stateids. The experimental profile has real FAS2750 reconnect and lease validation, but dedicated-server restart grace/reclaim evidence remains an explicit exception until a safe maintenance fixture is available.

Documentation

The complete API documentation is published on docs.rs. See the Mount trait for supported filesystem operations.

Testing

Normal unit and integration tests run without access to an NFS server. The ignored physical-lab test exercises NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 against dedicated exports; its setup is documented in the source repository and is not part of the published crate.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

nfs-rs 0.7.1