Re: nfs error

RMG wrote:
I am getting this nfs error and I have been unable to find any
information on how to resolve it or what might be causing it.

Google. It would have been nice if you had provided a few details
about the systems involved.

It
seems as though many have seen it, but no one knows how to fix it.

Oh please, this is a very common problem that most of us have run into
(AND fixed) many times.


xxxx kernel: nfs: server xxxx not responding, still trying
xxxx kernel: nfs: server xxxx OK


It is exactly what it says, the client (presumably Solaris since you posted here) cannot reach the server and/or the server is not working
right.

More or less in order you want to:

1. verify that the network interfaces on both machines are working. Pinging a third machine, printers are good since they rarely have firewalls, from each is enough of a test. If the network
won't pass simple packets you'll never get NFS (or much else) to work.
If the machines are in different subnets you want to ping targets in
the other subnet to verify that routing is ok.

2. verify that name resolution is working on both ends
("nslookup servername" on client, "nslookup clientname" on server).
Note check that on each end /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/nsswitch.conf
are ok. Also be sure there isn't a conflict on either name between
what nslookup returns and any entries in /etc/hosts. Note also that
in /etc/nsswitch.conf if the hosts line checks NIS before DNS, and
NIS (ypbind) is not working, there can be very long timeouts before
DNS is checked. This can cause all sorts of bizarre failure modes.
So if your system uses ypbind be sure that is working properly before
working on nfs.

3. verify that rpc is working in both directions
("rpcinfo -p servername" on client, "rpcinfo -p servername" on server).
The client should see something like this when it looks
at the server (maybe not the yp stuff, you may or may not be running that). This is looking at a Mandriva 2007.1 linux server from a solaris 8 system:

program vers proto port service
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100007 2 udp 644 ypbind
100007 1 udp 644 ypbind
100007 2 tcp 647 ypbind
100007 1 tcp 647 ypbind
600100069 1 udp 1009
600100069 1 tcp 1011
100024 1 udp 32889 status
100024 1 tcp 47419 status
100004 2 udp 654 ypserv
100004 1 udp 654 ypserv
100004 2 tcp 654 ypserv
100004 1 tcp 654 ypserv
100011 1 udp 4003 rquotad
100011 2 udp 4003 rquotad
100011 1 tcp 4003 rquotad
100011 2 tcp 4003 rquotad
100005 1 udp 4002 mountd
100005 1 tcp 4002 mountd
100005 2 udp 4002 mountd
100005 2 tcp 4002 mountd
100005 3 udp 4002 mountd
100005 3 tcp 4002 mountd
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100003 4 udp 2049 nfs
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
100021 1 udp 4001 nlockmgr
100021 3 udp 4001 nlockmgr
100021 4 udp 4001 nlockmgr
100021 1 tcp 4001 nlockmgr
100021 3 tcp 4001 nlockmgr
100021 4 tcp 4001 nlockmgr

The server should see something like this when
it looks at the client (again, maybe without
the ypbind). This is the view of a Solaris 8 system from
the Mandriva server:
program vers proto port
100000 4 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 3 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 4 udp 111 portmapper
100000 3 udp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100007 3 udp 39423 ypbind
100007 2 udp 39423 ypbind
100007 1 udp 39423 ypbind
100007 3 tcp 36179 ypbind
100007 2 tcp 36179 ypbind
100007 1 tcp 36179 ypbind
100005 1 udp 39516 mountd
100005 2 udp 39516 mountd
100005 3 udp 39516 mountd
100005 1 tcp 36642 mountd
100005 2 tcp 36642 mountd
100005 3 tcp 36642 mountd
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100227 2 udp 2049 nfs_acl
100227 3 udp 2049 nfs_acl
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100227 2 tcp 2049 nfs_acl
100227 3 tcp 2049 nfs_acl

This is the place where things are fairly likely to go wrong. Possible
reasons are:

portmapper service not running on one end or the other
firewall blocking connections. (Hint, special configuration
is needed to get NFS through a firewall, it must be set to
use fixed ports and those ports explicitly made available
to the client on the firewall).
nfs server crashed
nfs server misconfigured
/etc/exports on nfs server not set to allow client access
/etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny not allowing access to client

Regards,

David Mathog
.

Relevant Pages

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