PCNFS Services On HP-UX

[Michael Patrimonio]

Greetings,

We recently migrated an application from HP-UX 11.0 on a N-class to HP-UX 11i on a rp4440. All seemed to go well, with one exception:

A PC (Windows 2000) user has a network drive mapped to a directory on the UNIX server. Prior to the migration, the directory via the mapped drive was available, now it is no longer accessible. We have compared the two HP-UX configurations (the PC was not changed, by us), including:

/etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf (PCNFSD=1): configured to start, it is running.
/etc/shells: modified from the original to include all shells.
/etc/inetd.conf: modified to match the original file.
/etc/exports: modified to match the original file, exportfs reports that the appropriate directories are exported.
Patches: Current.

Are we missing something? Is client software required, so that I can test connectivity from my PC (so I don't have to keep bothering the user)?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks & Regards,
Michael
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[Michael Patrimonio]

Obviously, we are missing something, otherwise it would be working. :-)

As information: We also reviewed the permissions of the directories in question on each system, and they are the same.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks again,
Michael
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[Patrick Wallek]

Are you getting any types of errors on the Windows machine? Is there a user id and passowrd configured on the old machine that isn't on the new?

[Tim Nelson]

I have not used PCNFS in ages ( migrated to CIFS ) but a couple notes from the man page indicate to check /etc/shells for valid shells.

Obviously /etc/exports for proper export.


The username redered must be correct and active.

Also I seem to remember that if the server thinks that the client already mounted the filesystem it will deny access. Must get client to issue umount.

showmount -a sometimes helps.

PCNFS always was hokey. Once you got it to work it worked. Troubleshooting was sometimes a pain.

Set yourself up and test with your PC. Must have a third party NFS, i.e. reflection NFS, etc...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

One of the first things that I would do is an exportfs -u xxx to unexport the filesystem and then umount the filesystem on the host and examine the permissions on the underlying mount points. It may well be that the mountpoint permissions are too restrictive although when mounted everything appears ok. Next, I would export this filesystem again and try to mount it with a UNIX NFS client. If this works then there almost certainly has to be a problem with user authenication. There are a number of NFS clients available for Windows.

[Rasheed Tamton]

Greetings,

Can you check the /etc/xtab
If there is anything just empty it and do exportfs -a again.

I assume that you have already started the nfs.core/server/client daemons.

Is there any firewall issue with the new setup.

Regards,
Rasheed Tamton.

[Michael Patrimonio]

Thanks to all who have responded, and to those who have pondered the problem. :-)

Of all the suggestions provided thus far, the only item not tried is the attempt to "unmount" the network file system on the client.

As additional information, the client attempting to mount the remote file system is using the Reflection NFS product. Also, when we "browse" for available file systems from the client, we are "seeing" the exported file system.

I am not sure if this helps, but we will try the "unmount" and get back to you with an update. In the meantime, any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks & Regards,
Michael
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[Dave Olker]

Hi Michael,

The first thing I'd do is collect a network trace on the HP-UX system when the PC-NFS client is attempting the mount. You can use ethereal or nettl, whichever you prefer. I would start the trace on the HP-UX server, perform the failiing mount, stop the trace and then either analyze it yourself or I could analyze it for you. I'd need the IP address of the PC-NFS client you're using to reproduce the problem and the trace file itself.

Regards,

Dave

[John Waller]

Michael,

It is possible this could be a problem on the PC as well. Areas I would check are as follows:

Is the hostname of the HP server the same or do you need to modify the drive mapping?

Is the user ID and Password of the User the same?

Can the HP server resolv the PC's IP address to an hostname , i.e is the PC known by either DNS or HPUX host file?

Was the original mapping using pcnfs or was this a samba share?

For you question about client software I believe that you would need someform of software as by default a PC cannot map to a unix filesystem without either some 3rd network software or using samba on the HP-UX server.