Risks Involved with Enabling NFSv4?

[mattlach]

Hey all,

Just got around to upgrading to 9.3 today. I noticed that the new NFSv4 support is disabled by default.

Usually when this is done with a new feature, it is because there are some potential compatibility issues.

Are there any warnings that go along with enabling it?

I use NFS sharing on dedicated lines to a few Ubuntu 14.04 servers, as well as to my Linux Mint 17.1 desktop. All are new current releases, and I suspect that NFSv4 - if a problem - would be so on older releases. Is this correct?

Due to how NFS auto-negotiates version, I would expect them to automatically try NFSv4, and if that doesn't work fall back to NFSv3 (or maybe even v2), since I haven't specified versions in my mounts.

Any thoughts?

I'm by no means running a professional production server, but it is a production home box, hosting my TV DVR recordings (using MythTV) and all the file sharing and cloud backups for the house. It would be a major pain if it went down, but not something I couldn't switch back.

Much obliged,
Matt

 

[L]

The primary benefit of nfsv4 is strict authentication. NFSv3 and lower restrict access based on IP address and use user ID for file access. Not features typically needed in home network

 

[mattlach]

The primary benefit of nfsv4 is strict authentication. NFSv3 and lower restrict access based on IP address and use user ID for file access. Not features typically needed in home network

Well, I'm more interested in the reworked filesystem locking aspects of NFSv4. I read they completely rewrote how NFS handles filesystem locking. In NFSv3 it has caused some issues for me, and I was hoping the reworked method might perform better. Another solution would be to switch to SMB, but it seems silly to use SMB to communicate between FreeNAS and my linux servers...