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A Practical Approach to NFS Response Time Monitoring

Gary L. Schaps and Peter Bishop
Cirrus Logic, Inc.

Abstract

NFS and the automounter simplify both filesystem access and filesystem management in large, distributed networks. In demanding environments, however, they require a network management strategy which ensures a consistent and acceptable level of performance.

This paper reviews available tools for measuring NFS response time including rpcspy, nfswatch, nfsstat, and WireTap. We then describe a heuristic technique we have implemented on top of basic NFS response time statistics. It is used to create a management measure of network quality based upon NFS response time, and to proactively focus on NFS performance bottlenecks.

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