nfs-lease · shipping · also NFS lease, NFS client lease

NFSv4 lease

An NFSv4 lease is a renewable time interval during which the server maintains a client's locking state, subject to the protocol's revocation rules.

For NFSv4.1, one lease covers the state associated with a client ID, and successful SEQUENCE processing renews an unexpired lease. After expiration, renewal is conditional; clients must inspect SEQUENCE status flags for revoked state. Expiration permits revocation; it does not imply that every lock vanished at the deadline. Administrative revocation and unreturned recalls are separate cases. [1] [2] [3]

NFSv4.0 has different renewal rules, including RENEW. Lease renewal does not flush file data or validate cached content. [4]

Relations

related

nfs-storage, nfs-delegation, nfs-grace-period, nfs-stateid

Limitations

• A renewed lease is not a durable-write acknowledgement. [1]

Citations

1. RFC 8881 (NFSv4.1), section 8.3, Lease Renewal. (accessed 2026-10-18)
2. RFC 8881 (NFSv4.1), section 8.4.3, Network Partitions and Recovery. (accessed 2026-10-18)
3. RFC 8881 (NFSv4.1), section 8.5, Server Revocation of Locks. (accessed 2026-10-18)
4. RFC 7530 (NFSv4.0), section 9.5, Lease Renewal. (accessed 2026-10-18)

Further reading

5. NFS stable writes: what COMMIT, flush and FUA actually promise (accessed 2026-10-18)

JSON: /data/terms/nfs-lease.json