Security and decentralized control of the SFS global file system

Abstract

SFS (secure file system) is a global file system designed to be secure against all active and passive network attacks, provide a single namespace across all machines in the world, and avoid any form of centralized control. Using SFS, any unprivileged user can access any file server in the world securely and with no prior arrangement on the part of system administrators. New file servers are immediately accessible securely by all client machines. Users can name such new servers from any existing file system by specifying public keys in symbolic links. A prototype implementation of SFS installs easily, coexists with other file systems, and should port trivially to most UNIX platforms. Preliminary performance numbers on application benchmarks show that, despite its use of encryption and user-level servers, SFS delivers performance competitive with an in-kernel NFS implementation.