Disclaimer
==========

This project originated as a fork of [xetdata/nfsserve](https://github.com/xetdata/nfsserve) and
includes a substantial amount of code from that repository.

Rust `NFSv3` Server
===================

This is an incomplete but very functional implementation of an `NFSv3` server in Rust. The main goal of this project is to enable robust and flexible data sharing. By implementing the provided traits, you can share almost any type of data, ranging from a regular filesystem to more complex storage backends like S3 buckets (note: S3 integration is not included in this library).

Quick start
===========

If you want to try the server out, you can use [cargo-nfs3-server](https://github.com/Vaiz/nfs3/blob/main/crates/cargo_nfs3_server/README.md) crate that provides a cli tool able to run in memory filesystem or mirror an existing the local one.

Examples
========

The project includes a set of examples that can be run pretty much in the same way. You can find them in [examples](https://github.com/Vaiz/nfs3/tree/main/crates/nfs3_server/examples) folder.

`MemFs` example
---------------

```bash
cargo run --example memfs --features memfs
```

To mount. On Linux (sudo may be required):
```bash
mkdir demo
mount.nfs -o user,noacl,nolock,vers=3,tcp,wsize=1048576,rsize=131072,actimeo=120,port=11111,mountport=11111 localhost:/ demo
```

On Mac:
```bash
mkdir demo
mount_nfs -o nolocks,vers=3,tcp,rsize=131072,actimeo=120,port=11111,mountport=11111 localhost:/ demo
```

On Windows (Pro required as Home does not have NFS client):
```bash
mount.exe -o anon,nolock,mtype=soft,fileaccess=6,casesensitive,lang=ansi,rsize=128,wsize=128,timeout=60,retry=2 \\127.0.0.1\\ X:
```

Note that this example uses *writable* instance of `MemFs`.

Usage
=====

You simply need to implement the `vfs::NfsReadFileSystem` and (optionaly) `vfs::NfsFileSystem`
traits. See memfs.rs for an example and bin/main.rs for how to actually start
a service. The interface generally not difficult to implement; demanding mainly
the ability to associate every file system object (directory/file) with a 64-bit
ID. Directory listing can be a bit complicated due to the pagination requirements.

Relevant RFCs
=============
 - XDR is the message format: [RFC 1014](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1014).
 - SUN RPC is the RPC wire format: [RFC 1057](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1057).
 - NFS is at [RFC 1813](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1813).
 - NFS Mount Protocol is at [RFC 1813 Appendix I](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1813#appendix-I).
 - `PortMapper` is at [RFC 1057 Appendix A](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1057#appendix-A).


More More Details Than Necessary
================================
The basic way a message works is:
1. We read a collection of fragments off a TCP stream 
   (a 4 byte length header followed by a bunch of bytes)
2. We assemble the fragments into a record
3. The Record is of a SUN RPC message type.
4. A message tells us 3 pieces of information,
  - The RPC Program (just an integer denoting
    a protocol "class". For instance NFS protocol is 100003, the Portmapper protocol is 100000).
  - The version of the RPC program (ex: 3 = `NFSv3`, 4 = `NFSv4`, etc)
  - The method invoked (Which NFS method to call) (See for instance nfs.rs top comment for the list)
5. Continuing to decode the message will give us the arguments of the method
6. And we take the method response, wrap it around a record and return it. 

Portmapper
----------
First, lets get portmapper out of the way. This is a *very* old mechanism which
is rarely used anymore. The portmapper is a daemon which runs on a machine running
on port 111. When NFS, or other RPC services start, they register with the 
portmapper service with the port they are listening on (Say NFS on 2049). 
Then when another machine wants to connect to NFS, they first ask the port mapper
on 111 to ask about which port NFS is listening on, then connects to the returned 
port.

We do not strictly need to implement this protocol as this is pretty much
unused these days (`NFSv4` does not use the portmapper for instance). If `-o port` and `-o mountport`
are specified, Linux and Mac's builtin NFS client do not need it either.
But this was useful for debugging and testing as libnfs seems to require a
portmapper, but it annoyingly hardcodes it to 111. I modified the source to
change it to 12000 for testing and implemented the one `PMAPPROC_GETPORT`
method so I can test with libnfs.


NFS Basics
==========
The way NFS works is that every file system object (dir/file/symlink) has 2
ways in which it can be addressed:

1. `fileid3: u64` . A 64-bit integer. Equivalent to an inode number.
2. `nfs_fh3`: A variable opaque object up to 64 bytes long.

Basically anytime the client tries to access any information about an object,
it needs an `nfs_fh3`. The purpose of the `nfs_fh3` serves 2 purposes:

 - Allow server to cache additional query information in the handle that may exceed
   64-bit. For instance if the server has multiple exports on different disk volumes,
   I may need a few more bits to identify the disk volume.
 - Allow client to identify when server has "restarted" and thus client has to
   clear all caches. the `nfs_fh3` handle should contain a token that is unique
   to when the NFS server first started up which allows the server to check that
   the handle is still valid. If the server has restarted, all previous handles
   will therefore be "expired" and any usage of them should trigger a handle expiry
   error informing the clients to expunge all caches.


However, the only way to obtain an `nfs_fh3` for a file is via directory traversal.
i.e. There is a lookup method 
`LOOKUP(directory's handle, filename of file/dir in directory)` 
which returns the handle for the filename.

For instance to get the handle of a file "dir/a.txt", I first need the handle
for the directory "dir/", then query `LOOKUP(handle, "a.txt")`.

The question is then, how do I get my first handle? That is what the MOUNT
protocol addresses.

Mount
-----
The MOUNT protocol provides a list of "exports", (in the simplest case. Just "/")
and the client will request to MNT("/") which will return the handle of this 
root directory.

Normally the server can and do maintain a list of mounts which can be queried,
and really the client can UMNT (unmount) as well.  But in our case we
only implement MNT and EXPORT which suffices. NFS clients generally
ignore the return message of UMNT as there is really nothing the
client can do on a UMNT failure. As such our Mount protocol implementation
is entirely stateless.

NFS
---
The NFS protocol itself is pretty straightforward with most annoyances
due to handling of the XDR messaging format (in paticular with optional,
lists, etc).

What is nice is that the design of NFS is completely stateless. It is mostly
sit down and implement all the methods that are hit and test them against a 
client.
