NFS/DNS problem on 10.20

[Glenn Wagner]

We have a very strange problem that "showed up" yesterday morning. We have a network of 10.20 machines (mostly C class, old and new). We have a data server that hosts user directories and any user who is set up with either posix or ksh that has their home directory on this server cannot fully log in, under the circumstance that the .profile does not have the HISTFILE variable set. If this variable is not set, the login executes everything in the .profile but a prompt never appears. If I put the HISTFILE variable in the .profile, the login works fine. We did not make any changes to any server, yet this problem only occurs with this server. Any takers on this one?

Thanks
GW

[Lasse Knudsen]

This is a known issue and is a result from NFS locking problems - install patches concerning NFS (both client and server)

[James R. Ferguson]

Glenn:

Did the server hosting your HOME directories have any patches applied, particularly NFS ones? This sounds like a timing issue.

An document (#A5148812) from a few years ago noted: "My NFS server is on HP-UX 10.10. My clients are all 10.20. I am using NFS-mounted home directories. The problem is that I am not getting to a command prompt when using ksh or sh. The problem occurs via telnet, login, remsh, or CDE." The solution was to point the HISTFILE to a locally mounted directory.

...JRF...