Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) D. Black, Ed.
Request for Comments: 6688 EMC Corporation
Updates: 5663 J. Glasgow
Category: Standards Track Google
ISSN: 2070-1721 S. Faibish
EMC Corporation
July 2012
Parallel NFS (pNFS) Block Disk Protection
Abstract
Parallel NFS (pNFS) extends the Network File System version 4 (NFSv4)
to enable direct client access to file data on storage devices and
bypass the NFSv4 server. This can increase both performance and
parallelism, but it requires additional client functionality, some of
which depends upon the type of storage used. The pNFS specification
for block storage (RFC 5663) describes how clients can identify the
volumes used for pNFS, but this mechanism requires communication with
the NFSv4 server. This document updates RFC 5663 to add a mechanism
that enables identification of block storage devices used by pNFS
file systems without communicating with the server. This enables
clients to control access to pNFS block devices when the client
initially boots, as opposed to waiting until the client can
communicate with the NFSv4 server.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6688.
Black, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 6688 pNFS Block Disk Protection July 2012
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................3
2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................4
3. GPT Partition Table Entry .......................................4
4. Security Considerations .........................................5
5. References ......................................................5
5.1. Normative References .......................................5
5.2. Informative References .....................................6
6. Acknowledgements.................................................6
Black, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 6688 pNFS Block Disk Protection July 2012
1. Introduction
Figure 1 shows the overall architecture of a Parallel NFS (pNFS)
system:
+-----------+
|+-----------+ +-----------+
||+-----------+ | |
||| | NFSv4.1 + pNFS | |
+|| Clients |<------------------------------>| MDS |
+| | | |
+-----------+ | |
||| +-----------+
||| |
||| |
||| Storage +-----------+ |
||| Protocol |+-----------+ |
||+----------------||+-----------+ Control |
|+-----------------||| | Protocol |
+------------------+|| Storage |------------+
+| Devices |
+-----------+
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