The major NFS daemons are:

nfsd

nfsd handles client requests from remote systems. Multiple copies of this daemon are usually run so that several requests can be handled simultaneously. However, too many copies of nfsd can increase the demand for CPU time to the point where a drop in performance results. For the best performance the number of copies of nfsd should be set to four.

biod

biod handles block I/O requests for NFS client processes. As with nfsd, several copies are usually run and the number of copies should be set to four.

rpc.mountd

rpc.mountd handles mount requests from remote systems.

rpc.lockd

rpc.lockd manages file locking on NFS client and server machines.

rpc.statd

rpc.statd manages lock crash and recovery services for both client and server systems.

portmap

portmap is not strictly an NFS daemon, although it is required for NFS to function properly. It facilitates the initial connection between local and remote servers. Under Solaris the rpcbind daemon performs the same function.

Installing NFS is fairly simple. Once the software has been installed and NFS capabilities are enabled in the kernel, the daemons need to be started. This can be done with with a script. Some flavors of Unix start these daemons when NFS is installed or upon a reboot following installation of the NFS software. The daemons can also be started from the command line:
# /usr/sbin/biod 4
# /usr/sbin/nfsd 4
# /usr/sbin/rpc.mountd
# /usr/sbin/rpc.statd
# /usr/sbin/rpc.lockd