Solaris NFS clients go wonky when server went FC4->FC5

[Kam Leo]

On 9/19/06, Randy Grimshaw <rgrimsha at syr.edu> wrote:
> I just ran into an unrelated issue that caught me by surprise... but it
> might just be worth looking into for this problem also... selinux. Just
> for grins and giggles you might try turning it off for NFS to see what
> happens. Desktop->System->Security...
> It also might be worth checking into iptables settings. These are
> generally good things so put them back if this suggestion doesn't help.
> My surprise was related to smb support which may just be similar enough.
> I needed to carefully adjust these features. Good luck.
> <><Randy
>
>
> <><Randall Grimshaw
> Room 203 Machinery Hall
> Syracuse University
> Syracuse, NY   13244
> 315-443-5779
> rgrimsha at syr.edu
> >>> will.partain at verilab.com 09/19/06 5:26 PM >>>
> "Chris Mohler" <cr33dog at gmail.com> writes:
>
> [previous recap is at the end]
>
> > Probably not related, but I see those errors on my NFS clients from
> > time to time.
> >
> > It's usually when:
> >
> > A - The server is using 90%+ of the CPU
> > B - the network traffic is very high.
>
> Chris, thanks for your reply.  That's definitely not it -- this is a
> quiet-backwater network.  Further developments and facts:
>
> * I upgraded the SPARC box (client) to Solaris 10 6/06 (i.e. the
>   latest), in case the problem was old, crufty code there.  No change.
>
> * It is something _I'm_ doing that is triggering the problem; I have a
>   colleague who has been using a similar box for days without incident.
>
> * I can make the problem happen always and instantly.  My test case
>   happens to involve an NFS partition named /sysadm/.-ark-install-ALL
>
>   I can 'ls /sysadm/.-ark-install-ALL' and it mounts and works fine.
>
>   If I 'truss' the offending test case, it fails at the syscall...
>
>    open64("/our/.-ark-deploy/arkbase/share/ark/arkcmd", O_RDONLY)
>
>   I changed the mount from 'intr' to 'soft', so that I would get an
>   error message other than just "server not responding".  (Useful
>   trick, no?)
>
>   In every case, I get...
>
>    NFS <op> failed for server foo: error 5 (RPC: Timed out)
>
>   ... where <op> is usually getattr, but can be something else.
>
>   But running all the stuff like '/usr/bin/rpcinfo -t foo nfs' shows
>   everything a picture of happiness.
>
>   [The exact mount opts were:
>
> read/write/nosetuid/nodevices/nodev/timeo=600/retrans=2/proto=tcp/vers=3/soft/xattr]
>
> * Once it goes ga-ga over one mount from the server, it is ga-ga about
>   other mounts from the same server -- until it rights itself again.
>
> * I _thought_ it might have something to do with running as root; but
>   no deal -- I can burst it as me, too.
>
> I count this as slight progress :-(  Any other ideas?
>
> Will
>
> == recap ============================================================
>
> For a long time (years), have had sparc-solaris8 NFS clients
> (well-patched) talking to a RH/Fedora NFS server, recently FC4
> (x86_64).  The mount options, dished out through autofs, were
> (probably sub-optimally):
>
>   -rw,nosuid,nodev,sync,retry=5,rsize=16384,wsize=16384,intr
>
> These were lightly-used clients; it worked; everybody happy.
>
> I yum-upgraded the server to FC5 (current kernel, nfs-utils).  It
> works.. most of the time, but the clients now often-but-not-always
> wander off into...
>
>   NFS server foo not responding still trying
>   NFS server foo ok


Turn off the firewall and see if that fixes your problem.