root 12345 0.0 0.1 42000 2400 ? Ss 10:00 0:00 /usr/sbin/nfs-cfged You'll know that small, sleeping daemon is ready to reconfigure your NFS server on the fly, without ever dropping a single client connection.
rpm -qa | grep nfs-utils # RHEL/CentOS/Fedora dpkg -l | grep nfs-kernel-server # Debian/Ubuntu nfsconf --version Nfs-cfged
Key directives in nfs.conf related to nfs-cfged : root 12345 0
Embrace nfs-cfged . Keep it running. Let it work its quiet magic. Want to check which version of nfs-utils you have? Keep it running
If you have ever run ps aux | grep nfs and spotted nfs-cfged sitting quietly with zero CPU usage, you might have wondered what it does. Is it a daemon? A configuration watcher? A leftover from a misconfigured service?
Historically, changing an export ( /etc/exports ) required running exportfs -r or restarting nfs-server.service . While this works, it is a blunt instrument. In high-availability or high-load environments, restarting NFS services can disrupt active mounts and cause application timeouts.