diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/exporting.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/exporting.rst
index 960be64446cb..0e98edd353b5 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/exporting.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/exporting.rst
@@ -202,3 +202,16 @@ following flags are defined:
     This flag exempts the filesystem from subtree checking and causes
     exportfs to get back an error if it tries to enable subtree checking
     on it.
+
+  EXPORT_OP_CLOSE_BEFORE_UNLINK - always close cached files before unlinking
+    On some exportable filesystems (such as NFS) unlinking a file that
+    is still open can cause a fair bit of extra work. For instance,
+    the NFS client will do a "sillyrename" to ensure that the file
+    sticks around while it's still open. When reexporting, that open
+    file is held by nfsd so we usually end up doing a sillyrename, and
+    then immediately deleting the sillyrenamed file just afterward when
+    the link count actually goes to zero. Sometimes this delete can race
+    with other operations (for instance an rmdir of the parent directory).
+    This flag causes nfsd to close any open files for this inode _before_
+    calling into the vfs to do an unlink or a rename that would replace
+    an existing file.
diff --git a/fs/nfs/export.c b/fs/nfs/export.c
index b9ba306bf912..5428713af5fe 100644
--- a/fs/nfs/export.c
+++ b/fs/nfs/export.c
@@ -171,5 +171,5 @@ const struct export_operations nfs_export_ops = {
 	.encode_fh = nfs_encode_fh,
 	.fh_to_dentry = nfs_fh_to_dentry,
 	.get_parent = nfs_get_parent,
-	.flags = EXPORT_OP_NOWCC|EXPORT_OP_NOSUBTREECHK,
+	.flags = EXPORT_OP_NOWCC|EXPORT_OP_NOSUBTREECHK|EXPORT_OP_CLOSE_BEFORE_UNLINK,
 };
diff --git a/fs/nfsd/vfs.c b/fs/nfsd/vfs.c
index 1ecaceebee13..79cba942087e 100644
--- a/fs/nfsd/vfs.c
+++ b/fs/nfsd/vfs.c
@@ -1724,7 +1724,7 @@ nfsd_rename(struct svc_rqst *rqstp, struct svc_fh *ffhp, char *fname, int flen,
 	struct inode	*fdir, *tdir;
 	__be32		err;
 	int		host_err;
-	bool		has_cached = false;
+	bool		close_cached = false;
 
 	err = fh_verify(rqstp, ffhp, S_IFDIR, NFSD_MAY_REMOVE);
 	if (err)
@@ -1783,8 +1783,9 @@ nfsd_rename(struct svc_rqst *rqstp, struct svc_fh *ffhp, char *fname, int flen,
 	if (ffhp->fh_export->ex_path.dentry != tfhp->fh_export->ex_path.dentry)
 		goto out_dput_new;
 
-	if (nfsd_has_cached_files(ndentry)) {
-		has_cached = true;
+	if ((ndentry->d_sb->s_export_op->flags & EXPORT_OP_CLOSE_BEFORE_UNLINK) &&
+	    nfsd_has_cached_files(ndentry)) {
+		close_cached = true;
 		goto out_dput_old;
 	} else {
 		host_err = vfs_rename(fdir, odentry, tdir, ndentry, NULL, 0);
@@ -1805,7 +1806,7 @@ nfsd_rename(struct svc_rqst *rqstp, struct svc_fh *ffhp, char *fname, int flen,
 	 * as that would do the wrong thing if the two directories
 	 * were the same, so again we do it by hand.
 	 */
-	if (!has_cached) {
+	if (!close_cached) {
 		fill_post_wcc(ffhp);
 		fill_post_wcc(tfhp);
 	}
@@ -1819,8 +1820,8 @@ nfsd_rename(struct svc_rqst *rqstp, struct svc_fh *ffhp, char *fname, int flen,
 	 * shouldn't be done with locks held however, so we delay it until this
 	 * point and then reattempt the whole shebang.
 	 */
-	if (has_cached) {
-		has_cached = false;
+	if (close_cached) {
+		close_cached = false;
 		nfsd_close_cached_files(ndentry);
 		dput(ndentry);
 		goto retry;
@@ -1872,7 +1873,8 @@ nfsd_unlink(struct svc_rqst *rqstp, struct svc_fh *fhp, int type,
 		type = d_inode(rdentry)->i_mode & S_IFMT;
 
 	if (type != S_IFDIR) {
-		nfsd_close_cached_files(rdentry);
+		if (rdentry->d_sb->s_export_op->flags & EXPORT_OP_CLOSE_BEFORE_UNLINK)
+			nfsd_close_cached_files(rdentry);
 		host_err = vfs_unlink(dirp, rdentry, NULL);
 	} else {
 		host_err = vfs_rmdir(dirp, rdentry);
diff --git a/include/linux/exportfs.h b/include/linux/exportfs.h
index 2fcbab0f6b61..d829403ffd3b 100644
--- a/include/linux/exportfs.h
+++ b/include/linux/exportfs.h
@@ -213,8 +213,9 @@ struct export_operations {
 			  bool write, u32 *device_generation);
 	int (*commit_blocks)(struct inode *inode, struct iomap *iomaps,
 			     int nr_iomaps, struct iattr *iattr);
-#define	EXPORT_OP_NOWCC		(0x1)	/* Don't collect wcc data for NFSv3 replies */
-#define	EXPORT_OP_NOSUBTREECHK	(0x2)	/* Subtree checking is not supported! */
+#define	EXPORT_OP_NOWCC			(0x1) /* don't collect v3 wcc data */
+#define	EXPORT_OP_NOSUBTREECHK		(0x2) /* no subtree checking */
+#define	EXPORT_OP_CLOSE_BEFORE_UNLINK	(0x4) /* close files before unlink */
 	unsigned long	flags;
 };
 
