Linux 6.0 Brings NFSD Improvements For Courteous Server, Greater Cache Scalability

The NFS server improvements have been merged for the ongoing Linux 6.0 merge window.

Back in the Linux 5.19 cycle the NFSD work included the introduction of NFSv4 Courteous Server functionality. The "courteous server" handling allows for another client to open and lock the files of an unresponsive client while that unresponsive client's lease is purged. Without the courteous server, the server could retain the open and lock state for up to 24 hours on unresponsive clients.

With Linux 6.0 the courteous server has been improved upon to allow a flexible limit on the number of clients allowed. The client limit is now adjusted automatically based on the physical memory availability of the server.

Linux 6.0 NFSD also has improvements to its file cache. The file cache has been improved upon to address scalability constraints. Rounding out the Linux 6.0 enhancements are addressing a data corruption bug and several improvements in CPU scalability for NFSv4 operations.

More details on the NFSD enhancements for Linux 6.0 via this Git merge.