There is a limitation to the Linux NFS4.0 client implementation that an "open_owner" is mapped to a userid. This results in a bottleneck if one user opens and closes a lot of files in a short period of time. Each OPEN / CLOSE operation has to wait for a sequence id, which essentially serializes each OPEN / CLOSE request. If an NFS server's response time for OPEN / CLOSE requests increases due to some secondary load or complication, this NFS4 client limitation can become pronounced, and in some cases, cause an unresponsive machine.
The NFS4.1 protocol addresses the limitation of serialization of OPENs per open_owner. For more information, see RFC 5661 Section 9.10.
