NFS Server Scalability Improvement & Other NFS Enhancements For Linux 6.13

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NFS Server Scalability Improvement & Other NFS Enhancements For Linux 6.13

There are a few Network File System (NFS) enhancements worth pointing out with the in-development Linux 6.13 kernel...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-NFS

[Joe2021]

Semi-OT: In my daily usage it turned out that I use nothing else but SSHFS since years, as it suites my needs much better than any other network filesystem. No extra daemon, no extra port required as SSH is a necessity anyways, encrypted by default, fingerprinting of server and logging in with key pair come "for free".

But... SSHFS seems to be unmaintained since a while, which surprises me very much as I assumed a lot of people were enjoying the user experience with SSHFS. But nobody seems to be interested to maintain in apparently. Any updates in this regard?

[JPFSanders]

Semi-OT: In my daily usage it turned out that I use nothing else but SSHFS since years, as it suites my needs much better than any other network filesystem. No extra daemon, no extra port required as SSH is a necessity anyways, encrypted by default, fingerprinting of server and logging in with key pair come "for free".

But... SSHFS seems to be unmaintained since a while, which surprises me very much as I assumed a lot of people were enjoying the user experience with SSHFS. But nobody seems to be interested to maintain in apparently. Any updates in this regard?

SSHFS is too slow for anything beyond trivial.

Don't get me wrong, it can be practical and I've used it in the past and was nice. But it is too slow and doesn't behave well when there are issues between client and server.

[Joe2021]

SSHFS is too slow for anything beyond trivial.

In SOHO or at home most use cases ARE trivial. Feature- and performance-wise SSHFS is sufficient for the vast majority of "Average Joe-users".

[Chugworth]

Semi-OT: In my daily usage it turned out that I use nothing else but SSHFS since years, as it suites my needs much better than any other network filesystem. No extra daemon, no extra port required as SSH is a necessity anyways, encrypted by default, fingerprinting of server and logging in with key pair come "for free".

But... SSHFS seems to be unmaintained since a while, which surprises me very much as I assumed a lot of people were enjoying the user experience with SSHFS. But nobody seems to be interested to maintain in apparently. Any updates in this regard?

SSHFS would be my choice if only it supported extended attributes. Besides for that, it's great. Secure by design, very simple using only a single port, and can authenticate with a keyfile.

Though I begrudgingly use SMB for network file shares. At least it's secure and supports extended attributes, though I wish it could authenticate with a keyfile.

As for NFS, it's a big joke in today's heavily security-focused world. It's horridly insecure by design, and the only way to secure it is with convoluted add-ons that are poorly documented.

[Joe2021]

SSHFS would be my choice if only it supported extended attributes. Besides for that, it's great.

Indeed, that is the only feature I do miss. Which leads to my question regarding maintenance..

[Chugworth]

Indeed, that is the only feature I do miss. Which leads to my question regarding maintenance..

I'll take a wild guess that SSHFS is just a layer on top of SFTP that probably doesn't need much work itself. Getting extended attribute support would probably need deeper work into SFTP, and I wonder if the SSHFS developers even deal with that.

[Quaternions]

As for NFS, it's a big joke in today's heavily security-focused world. It's horridly insecure by design

Can you expand on this? I haven't heard about this before and I'm interested to know the reasoning behind it.

[Chugworth]

Can you expand on this? I haven't heard about this before and I'm interested to know the reasoning behind it.

Just one look at NFS and you can see the problem. Authentication is based on IP address and the data is transferred over the network raw.

With NFSv4 there is a way to add encryption, but it's not native, it's ridiculously cumbersome to set up, and there is very little documentation on how to do it.

[User29]

Just one look at NFS and you can see the problem. Authentication is based on IP address and the data is transferred over the network raw.

With NFSv4 there is a way to add encryption, but it's not native, it's ridiculously cumbersome to set up, and there is very little documentation on how to do it.

I don't think so.

At home, maybe. But in enterprise you have some storage appliance anyway, which support NFSv4 and encryption and everything OOTB. On client side it's also not a big fuss.