Initially, an end user at an NFS client mounts the path name of a directory that resides at the VFS server's system onto some mount point directory at the client. These mounts are often done automatically during the initialization of the user's workstation. The VFS server object that is mounted may be a regular file, rather than a directory, in which case information in Resolving the pathname of a file or directory does not apply. This topic describes only mounting a directory at the VFS server. This directory is referred to as the "initial directory."

After this exchange, the client has a file handle for the initial directory that was mounted. This file handle is saved and associated with the local mount point. All end user references to files at or below the local mount point now refer to files in the VFS server's file hierarchy that are at or below the initial directory.