1. A computer program product for executing a network file server on a computer, said computer program product including a plurality of computer executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, wherein said instructions are executed by the computer to: determine a complete client path from an initial client path; combine the complete client path with a server export path to generate an absolute path having no symbolic links; and traverse the determined absolute path using a file descriptor of each file in the absolute path to identify a first symbolic link that was inserted in the absolute path after the absolute path was determined, including starting at a root file or directory of the absolute path and sequentially attempting to open each file or directory in the absolute path, wherein opening each file is performed using an open operation with a first parameter that causes the open operation to open a file or directory that is adjacent a most recently returned file descriptor in the absolute path, and a second parameter that causes the open operation to determine whether the adjacent file or directory is a symbolic link, wherein the open operation is an openat( ) operation.