The NFSv2 Protocol

We thus arrive at the NFSv2 protocol definition. Our problem statement is simple:

THE CRUX: HOW TO DEFINE A STATELESS FILE PROTOCOL

How can we define the network protocol to enable stateless operation? Clearly, stateful calls like open() can’t be a part of the discussion (as it would require the server to track open files). However, the client application will want to call open(), read(), write(), close() and other standard API calls to access files and directories. Thus, as a refined question, how do we define the protocol to both be stateless and support the POSIX file system API?