Crazy NFS

[Carmen Sarlo_1]

nfsd is running from our n4000 running hp-ux 11.0. The client PC's are running nt ws. To connect via nfs we use InterDrive's NFS client. Some clients are connecting, some are not. I changed the nic on the n4000 and the switch port to 100 full duplex no auto neg. When trying to connect some of the clients we receive mounts is not running. I did a ps -ef|grep mountd and it is running. What is going on?
Carmen

[A. Clay Stephenson]

First things first.

Can the bad PC's ping the server by hostname? by IP Address? Can the Server ping the bad PC's
by hostname? by IP Address?

I suspect your problem is hostname resolution.

[Santosh Nair_1]

Carmen,

A couple of things, are you exporting the filesystems from the N-Class using NFSv3? If you are, make sure that the PC clients support NFSv3.

Also make sure rpc.mountd, rpc.statd and rpc.lockd are running. Finally make sure NFS services are registered with rpcbind on the host. You can check this by running rpcinfo and checking for mountd and nfs.

Hope this helps.

[Roger Baptiste]

hi,

Did you change the network speed settings
to 100FD on the fly? i.e when the PC's
were already NFS connected??

Since some of your PC's are able to NFS mount
and some other's are not, it seems the problem
is more likely to be at the PC end. Did
you attempt to NFS link these PC's (the non-working one's) before the Network change??
I had a problem where the NFS misbehaved
after a network setting change at the server
end.

If possible, try the Microsoftsolution
of rebooting one of the non-working PC's
and doing the NFS mount again.


-Raj

[Carmen Sarlo_1]

Hello,
I can ping the the server from the PC's. The NFS client was working up until today. I also tried the good old reboot of the PC's.

[Peter Van Sant]

Carmen,
You didn't mention whether or not you export with any host restrictions but if you do be sure the name resolution for the name in the access list resolves correctly both forward and backward from the HP side.

If for any reason mountd denies a mount and you later figure out why and correct it unless you stop and restart mountd it will continue to
deny that mount. Since some clients can mount (the same filesystems?) I say go ahead and cycle mountd on general principles and see if it doesn't clear up. You can do this at any time with without disturbing clients that are already mounting from the server.

Regarding the previously mentioned rpcinfo, you want to "ping" mountd and nfsd to make sure they are responding.
rpcinfo -u mountd
rpcinfo -u nfsd
u for udp or if using tcp, "-t"

[Roger Baptiste]

Carmen,

Are you using DHCP for the PC's?
It may be confusing mountd server.
How about restarting NFS server?? To make
it clean, unmount any existing NFS clients.
Do a showmount to see which clients
have mounted the filesystem:
#showmount -a

The nfs server can be restarted by:
/sbin/init.d/nfs.server stop
/sbin/init.d/nfs.server start

HTH
raj

[Carmen Sarlo_1]

Peter,
I ran rpcinfo -u nfsserver nfsd
and received rpcinfo: nfsd is unknown service
I checked /etc/services and found nfsd running from 2049/udp 2049/tcp.
I stopped and started nfs and still some clients will connect, but very slowly.
Carmen

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Carmen:

Here is my best guess as to what is going on:
You have a speed/duplex mismatch between some of the PC clients and the switch. Choose one of the bad or barely running connections and determine the speed/duplex settings on both the PC end and at the ethernet switch. If one end is set to half-duplex and the other end is set to full-duplex the connection will just barely work. It works just well enough to drive you nuts. I would hard set both the PC and the switch to see if the problem is resolved on that client. Also, are the bad guys on a separate subnet?

[Carmen Sarlo_1]

Clay,
Some of the PC's are on a seperate subnet.
Carmen

[Brian Hackley]

Carmen,

Its: rpcinfo -u nfs
NOT: rpcinfo -u nfsd

Also, excellent troubleshooting tips available for you online at:
http://docs.hp.com -> Networking and Communications -> NFS Services -> Installing and Administering NFS Services ->
Troubleshooting NFS Services -> Common Problems with NFS

Finally, HP ITRC document customer viewable document NETUXKBRC00006283 is an EXCELLENT resource we refer many customers to read for this kind of situation, as additional material to that found in the Manual.

Hope this helps,

-> Brian Hackley