nfs works fine but restart with an error

[Maaz]

OS: rhel 4

Nfs server is working just fine, but sometimes(not always) when i restart the nfs service I recieved the following output
# service nfs restart [ OK ]
Shutting down NFS mountd: [ OK ]
Shutting down NFS daemon: nfsd: last server has exited
nfsd: unexporting all filesystems
rpciod: active tasks at shutdown?!
RPC: failed to contact portmap (errno -5). [OK]
Shutting down NFS quotas: [ OK ]
Shutting down NFS services: [ OK ]
Starting NFS services: [ OK ]
Starting NFS quotas: [ OK ]
Starting NFS daemon: [ OK ]
Starting NFS mountd:

these two lines are prblm
rpciod: active tasks at shutdown?!
RPC: failed to contact portmap (errno -5). [OK]
I m also attaching the /var/log/messages output

Thanks n Regards
Maaz

[Jun Yu]

Hi,

Pls check if your portmap service is also running well.

chkconfig --list|grep portmap

use chkconfig to enable the portmap service and service portmap to start it.

take care of your SELinux option(/etc/sysconfig/selinux), disable it if you don't need.

Good Luck,

[Maaz]

Dear Jun Yu Thanks fr reply.

portmap is running and selinux is disabled.
I m pretty sure that if portmap is not running then nfs wont work. But in my case nfs server is working just fine. I can mount from client without any prblm. showmount -e nfs_server gives me the appropriate output.

and even the error I posted, is not a regular error message, but its rare.
To test the situation i restart nfs server continiously 7 times, and only when I was restarting 4th time it gives me the "RPC: failed to contact portmap (errno -5). [OK]
" message
Any Help will be highly appreciated ;)

[Stuart Browne]

What's the status of your firewall? Is 'iptables' blocking access to port 111?

[Alexander Chuzhoy]

I agree with Stuart .
Try to close the iptables service first (service iptables stop) and see if it gets better.

[Maaz]

Dear Stuart Browne and Alexander Chuzhoy, thanks for reply

IPtables is stop
/etc/hosts.deny is empty(default)

and I m repeating NFS server is working fine.
I can mount nfs share from client.

and I receive this error aftr 3 or 4 restart of nfs server in a row

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Suggesting tcpdump to take a look at the network traffic.

SEP

[Maaz]

Dear SEP I'll provide the tcpdump output tomorow. today I m celebrating SUNDAY

Thanks for replies
Maaz

[Bill Thorsteinson]

Is portmap listed in hosts.allow, hosts.deny.
If so you should verify access from localhost
is allowed.

Iptables should be set to allow all traffic on
lo.

[Maaz]

Thanks Bill Thorsteinson for reply/help.

Iptables is stop.
hosts.allow and hosts.deny is empty(default).
nfs server is working just fine.
I can mount the nfs share from clients.

and the error only comes when I restat nfs server 4 or 5 times in a row.
Say e.g I restart nfs server 15 times in a row, then 5th 9th and 13th restart will produce the following error
service nfs restart [ OK ]
Shutting down NFS mountd: [ OK ]
Shutting down NFS daemon: nfsd: last server has exited
nfsd: unexporting all filesystems
rpciod: active tasks at shutdown?!
RPC: failed to contact portmap (errno -5). [OK]
Shutting down NFS quotas: [ OK ]
Shutting down NFS services: [ OK ]
Starting NFS services: [ OK ]
Starting NFS quotas: [ OK ]
Starting NFS daemon: [ OK ]
Starting NFS mountd:

Thanks n Regards
Maaz