Securing NFS on Linux: Introducing RPC-with-TLS

​Note the date change for September!

​With the SNIA Developer Conference (SDC) occurring Sept. 28-30 and the speaker's availability during this time, September's meeting will actually be held on Thursday, October 1, 2026.

​Abstract: In 2014 the IETF published a document entitled "Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack" [RFC7258], which recognized that unauthorized observation of network traffic had become widespread and was a subversive threat to all who make use of the Internet at large.

​NFS, the Internet standard file system protocol, has supported the GSS Kerberos privacy service for decades. However, Kerberos is challenging to deploy and exacts a performance tax that is onerous. Enter RPC-with-TLS, specified by RFC 9289.

​Chuck will introduce the concepts and rationale, and answer questions about the Linux implementation. This is not a how-to, but rather a walk through of the components, motivation, and coming features for this new on-the-wire authentication and encryption mechanism.

​Speaker Bio: I'm a Linux kernel maintainer specializing in network file systems and high-performance storage protocols, with deep expertise in NFS and RDMA. My work focuses on the low-level infrastructure that enterprise and cloud storage depends on--from kernel implementation to published standards.

​Timing: 7:00--7:45 Social Session
7:45--8:00 Announcements & Introductions
8:00-ish Presentation