1. A method for incrementally indexing information contained in files within a distributed file system residing upon a virtual file server assembled by integrating a plurality of file servers comprising the steps of: a. upon closing one of the files of the distributed file system after information contained in the file being closed has been changed: i. parsing the information contained in the file; and ii. creating inverted index entries from the parsed information; b. sorting the inverted index entries; and c. merging the sorted inverted index entries into inverted file records of an inverted file that is associated with content of the distributed file system.