Skip to main content
NetworkFileSystem has been deprecated and will be removed. Use modal.Volume instead for persistent file storage.
A shared, writable file system accessible by one or more Modal functions. By attaching this file system as a mount to one or more functions, they can share and persist data with each other.

​
Usage

import modal

nfs = modal.NetworkFileSystem.from_name("my-nfs", create_if_missing=True)
app = modal.App()

@app.function(network_file_systems={"/root/foo": nfs})
def f():
    pass

@app.function(network_file_systems={"/root/goo": nfs})
def g():
    pass

​
Factory methods

​
NetworkFileSystem.from_name

modal.NetworkFileSystem.from_name(
    name: str,
    *,
    environment_name: Optional[str] = None,
    create_if_missing: bool = False,
    client: Optional[Client] = None,
) -> NetworkFileSystem
Reference a NetworkFileSystem by its name, creating if necessary.
​
name
str
required
Name of the NetworkFileSystem.
​
environment_name
str
Environment to look up in.
​
create_if_missing
bool
default:"False"
Create if it doesn’t exist.
Example: 
nfs = NetworkFileSystem.from_name("my-nfs", create_if_missing=True)

@app.function(network_file_systems={"/data": nfs})
def f():
    pass

​
NetworkFileSystem.ephemeral

modal.NetworkFileSystem.ephemeral(
    client: Optional[Client] = None,
    environment_name: Optional[str] = None,
) -> ContextManager[NetworkFileSystem]
Creates a new ephemeral network filesystem within a context manager. Example: 
with modal.NetworkFileSystem.ephemeral() as nfs:
    assert nfs.listdir("/") == []

​
Methods

​
nfs.write_file

nfs.write_file(
    remote_path: str,
    fp: BinaryIO,
) -> int
Write from a file object to a path on the network file system, atomically. Will create any needed parent directories automatically.

​
nfs.read_file

nfs.read_file(
    path: str,
) -> AsyncIterator[bytes]
Read a file from the network file system.

​
nfs.iterdir

nfs.iterdir(
    path: str,
) -> AsyncIterator[FileEntry]
Iterate over all files in a directory.
  • Passing a directory path lists all files in the directory
  • Passing a file path returns a list containing only that file’s listing
  • Passing a glob path returns all files matching that glob

​
nfs.add_local_file

nfs.add_local_file(
    local_path: Union[Path, str],
    remote_path: Optional[Union[str, PurePosixPath]] = None,
)
Upload a local file to the network file system.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us