A system and method for accessing remote files in a distributed networking environment

A system and method for accessing remote files (5) in a distributed networking environment . To reduce the network traffic overhead when files at other nodes are accessed, and to preserve the file system semantics, i.e. the file integrity, the accessing of the various files are managed by file synchronization modes. A file is given a first synchronization mode if a file is open at only one node for either read or write access. A file is given a second synchronization mode if a file is opened for read only access at any node. A file is given a third synchronization mode if the file is open for read access in more than one node, and at least one node has the file open for write access. If a file is in either the first or second synchronization mode, the client node (B), which is the node accessing the file , uses a client cache (12B) within its operating system to store the file. All read and writes are then sent to this cache. If a file is in the third mode, all read and write requests must go to the server node (A) where the file resides. The node accessing the file does not use the cache in its operating system to access the file data this third mode. The client cache is managed such that all read and write requests access the client cache in the first and second synchronization modes. In the third synchronization mode, the client cache is not used. In this way, overall system performance is improved without sacrificing file integrity.