[rhn-users] strange problem with NFS and/or automount and/or autofs

[Sullivan, Michael]

Brian,

This issue occurs when there are network routing issues.  Verify that you
don't have asymmetric routing accruing from or to your interfaces.  You may
have to add a "route-eth*" file in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
directory to persist after reboots. 

--Mike.  

-----Original Message-----
From: rhn-users-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:rhn-users-bounces at redhat.com] On
Behalf Of Brian C. Hill
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 12:37 PM
To: rhn-users at redhat.com
Subject: [rhn-users] strange problem with NFS and/or automount and/or autofs


	Hi Red Hatters,

	Sorry, this is a little long, but maybe this problem will jump out
at you.  This NFS problem is hard to describe, since it seems to bounce
around, but I will try. First, note that all systems involved are completely
up2date.

Basic architecture:

* 1 'server' system with 2 IP addresses running NFS with 2 exported
filesystems (at the same level - /data/a and /data/b)

* 4 'client' systems, each with 1 IP address using autofs via /net to mount
filesystems from the 'server' system running NFS

* all run Red Hat Enterprise ES 3.0

Problem:

We see a variety of problems after rebooting the NFS server that are
resolved in in one or more ways including:

* restarting autofs on the clients
* running exportfs -av on the NFS server
* restarting NFS on the server (even though it has just been rebooted)
* rebooting one or more (though seldom all) client systems

Since the steps necessary to restore access after a reboot vary from episode
to episode, the problem seems to be a moving target and is really hard to
debug. The only error message that seems to appear is this one on the NFS
server:

getfh failed: Operation not permitted

The only other odd symptoms that often presents themselves are:

* sometimes, when the system cannot be accessed via /net, it is still
possible to do a mount command by hand (though not always)

* sometimes, access to only one of the servers IP addresses fails via /net
while both of them are usable with a mount command

* sometimes, both /net and manual mount fail with a 'permission denied',
which is, again, sometimes fixed by an exportfs -a or -r on the NFS server
and sometimes not.

* sometimes /data/a can be accessed, but not /data/b and vice versa.

It is also strange that this usually only seems to affect some of the
clients (usually 2 out of 4). It does generally seem to be the same 2 that
fail, but again, it is not always those 2 or only those 2.

I have exhausted many hours trying to figure out this problem (via Red Hat
faqs, google, etc.).

Clues?

Thanks. :)

Brian

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