nfs-mounting AIX fs from linux ramdisk client



Hi,

Please consider the following scenario:


We're trying to build a ramdisk for Debian Linux that boots root from an NFS filesystem. The NFS server is an AIX 5.3 machine. Linux uses statically linked nfs client (called nfsmount, comes with klibc-utils that are used for ramdisks construction on debian, by initramfs-utils package).

When the ramdisk tries to mount the required fs from the aix server
Trying to mount the fs by the ramdisk fails after a long timeout. Using the same "nfsmount" from a running (not ramdisk) linux system to mount an AIX fs, fails exactly as with the ramdisk case.
Regular "mount -t nfs ..." works fine, but requires the use of dynamically linked executables which is undesirable for us.

When the server is a linux system (same physical machine as the client), "nfsmount" succeeds using a running system. We did not have the chance to try with 2 different machines, therefore we couldn't have tried to use "nfsmount" from "ramdisk" with a linux NFS server.

We tried a suggestion from
http://www.groupsrv.com/linux/about105785.html
at the bottom of the page, where similar scenario of ubuntu ramdisk trying to mount AIX-hosted NFS is treated. They solved it by mounting with "-o nolock,proto=tcp" options. In our case that means "-o nolock,tcp".
This didn't help. We have also tried changing the block sizes, but this didn't help either.

Any ideas how solve the problem (or at least, how to get more information for solving) ?

We'd appreciate your assistance,
/Zvika



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