The NFS protocol is designed to be machine, operating system, network architecture, and transport protocol independent.
Implementations exist for a variety of machines, from personal computers to supercomputers.
The supporting mount protocol allows the server to hand out remote access privileges to a restricted set of clients. It performs the operating system-specific functions that allow, for example, to attach remote directory trees to some local file system. Remote Procedure Call Sun's remote procedure call specification provides a procedure- oriented interface to remote services. Each server supplies a program that is a set of procedures. The combination of host address, program number, and procedure number specifies one remote service procedure.