RHEL 8 New Features for Experienced Linux Administrators

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 NFS Enhancements

• The default NFS version in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is 4.2. NFSv4 and NFSv3 major versions are supported, but NFSv2 is no longer supported.

• The NFS configuration file is now /etc/nfs.conf. The /etc/sysconfig/nfs configuration file is deprecated.

• The introduction of the new nfsconf command to manage NFS configuration files.

• RHEL 8 removes the nfsnobody user, and changes the UID and GID of the nobody user and group to 65534.

• NFSv4 no longer requires the rpcbind service to operate, eliminating the need for UDP connections.

NFS 4.2 Features

• Server-side copy enables the NFS client to instruct the NFS server to copy data directly from one NFS share to another. This helps to optimize resources because the copied data is not transmitted over the network.

• Sparse files enable files to have multiple holes, which are data blocks consisting only of zeroes. These are transferred as zeroes improving the overall speed.

• Space reservation allows users to reserve free space on NFS servers, which prevents the NFS share from running out of space.

• Labeled NFS enforces data access rights and enables SELinux on NFS file systems.

The nfsconf command

RHEL 8 introduces the nfsconf command to manage the NFS client and server configuration files.

• The nfsconf command handles NFSv4 and NFSv3 configuration.

• The default nfsconf configuration file is /etc/nfs.conf.

• The nfsconf --file filename command loads the specified configuration file.

• The nfsconf command can get, set, or test NFS configuration files.