Problem with NFS after updating util-linux

[Paul Howarth]

Espen Stefansen wrote:
> Hi
> 
> At my company, we have a redhat 9 server which is a nfs and nis
> server. It handles our logins and home-dirs. After updating my Fedora
> 3 machine with util-linux, i cannot log on anymore. In my log it says:
> 
> Mar 31 13:58:54 localhost automount[5900]: >> mount to NFS server
> 'artemis' failed: server is down.
> Mar 31 13:58:54 localhost automount[5900]: >> mount: backgrounding
> "artemis:/export/home/espens"
> 
> But the server isn't down.
> 
> If i replace the new util-linux rpm, with the old one, it works fine.
> 
> Does anybody know why??

I suspect that the fix for bug #141773 (which is presumably a security 
issue because bugzilla won't let me see it) mentioned in the changelog 
for the updated package has introduced this problem:

* Fri Feb 25 2005 <SteveD at RedHat.com> 2.12a-20

- Changed nfsmount to only use reserve ports when necessary
   (bz# 141773)


I've just observed the exact same problem with my RH9 NFS server and 
also with an HP-UX 11 server, though my RHEL3 and FC3 servers are 
unaffected.

I suspect it might be possible to work around this by convincing 
nfsmount that using the reserved ports is "necessary" for the older 
servers, but I haven't figured out how to do this yet.

Paul.