> fileserver: "hey just fyi another client modified this file you're interested in" > linux client: "roger that, I'll invalidate my cache" Windows (SMB/CIFS) calls this opportunistic locks (oplocks), NFS calls this delegations. (The server tells the caching client to drop/flush its cache *before* allowing another client to access the file.) If the network connection is temporarily broken and the client uses the stale cache later, you get data corruption. This was a somewhat common problem with SMB; I guess recent protocol versions protect against this.