[opensuse] NFS client/server problems when an NFS server is offline
This weekend I was setting up a small home network for a friend. He has 2 computers on openSUSE, one on 11.0, and the other on 11.1. A third computer is on Kubuntu 8.04, and he will be adding a 4th computer to the mix running openSUSE 11.1. All are on the same subnet over 2 routers (one router acting as a switch). I set up computer 1 as an NFS server, and exported a partition. I went to computer 2, and set it up as an NFS client connecting to computer 1. Then I set up an NFS server on computer 2 and an NFS client on computer 1... and again on computer 2. The idea being that I could export a partition on each computer to be mounted from the other two as standard NFS mounts. This worked perfectly, and I could see the exports nicely mounted on each machine. I set the mount options for each client to: rw,hard,intr OK, so all appeared to be working great. Then computer 2 was powered down. If I opened a file manager (or terminal window and did an ls -al) on computer 1, it appeared to hang the file manager. It just sat there blank.. and then after 20 minutes or more it finally timed out (?) and showed the contents of /home/$USER. Is this normal? Shouldn't the intr option allow for the possibility of a NFS sever not being available, essentially pushing the mount attempts to the background, and silently mounting the NFS when the server comes available? It's possible I've misconfigured something here... but I haven't been able to pin down what the real issue is yet. Is this (using NFS server/client) a reasonable solution in a situation like this? Is there a better way to do this? (no central server, and wanting to share a partition on each drive across a small home network). C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Clayton wrote:
This weekend I was setting up a small home network for a friend. He has 2 computers on openSUSE, one on 11.0, and the other on 11.1. A third computer is on Kubuntu 8.04, and he will be adding a 4th computer to the mix running openSUSE 11.1. All are on the same subnet over 2 routers (one router acting as a switch).
I set up computer 1 as an NFS server, and exported a partition. I went to computer 2, and set it up as an NFS client connecting to computer 1. Then I set up an NFS server on computer 2 and an NFS client on computer 1... and again on computer 2. The idea being that I could export a partition on each computer to be mounted from the other two as standard NFS mounts. This worked perfectly, and I could see the exports nicely mounted on each machine.
I set the mount options for each client to: rw,hard,intr
OK, so all appeared to be working great. Then computer 2 was powered down. If I opened a file manager (or terminal window and did an ls -al) on computer 1, it appeared to hang the file manager. It just sat there blank.. and then after 20 minutes or more it finally timed out (?) and showed the contents of /home/$USER.
Is this normal? Shouldn't the intr option allow for the possibility of a NFS sever not being available, essentially pushing the mount attempts to the background, and silently mounting the NFS when the server comes available?
Try a soft mount, if you expect the NFS server to be unavailable. -- Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
I set the mount options for each client to: rw,hard,intr
OK, so all appeared to be working great. Then computer 2 was powered down. If I opened a file manager (or terminal window and did an ls -al) on computer 1, it appeared to hang the file manager. It just sat there blank.. and then after 20 minutes or more it finally timed out (?) and showed the contents of /home/$USER.
Try a soft mount, if you expect the NFS server to be unavailable.
I tried that too with the same/similar results.... long timeouts/hangs in file managers and/or terminals that try to access /home/$USER or /media (where the NFS exports are mounted). C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Clayton wrote:
OK, so all appeared to be working great. Then computer 2 was powered down. If I opened a file manager (or terminal window and did an ls -al) on computer 1, it appeared to hang the file manager. It just sat there blank.. and then after 20 minutes or more it finally timed out (?) and showed the contents of /home/$USER.
Is this normal? Shouldn't the intr option allow for the possibility of a NFS sever not being available, essentially pushing the mount attempts to the background, and silently mounting the NFS when the server comes available?
No, you're confusing it with soft. Reread the man page (e.g.): http://linux.die.net/man/5/nfs
Is this (using NFS server/client) a reasonable solution in a situation like this? Is there a better way to do this? (no central server, and wanting to share a partition on each drive across a small home network).
Well it's better not to design your network like this, with circular mounts, but it is possible.
Try a soft mount, if you expect the NFS server to be unavailable.
I tried that too with the same/similar results.... long timeouts/hangs in file managers and/or terminals that try to access /home/$USER or /media (where the NFS exports are mounted).
Hmm, you should see some change. Start again using soft mounts, don't use file managers for now, just command lines and please post the results of your commands and the relevant status messages in the logs. Also, if you're mounting from fstab and it's still not working, try setting the fstab line to noauto and then mount manually after booting completes. That may help to pinpoint the problem. Cheers, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Is this normal? Shouldn't the intr option allow for the possibility of a NFS sever not being available, essentially pushing the mount attempts to the background, and silently mounting the NFS when the server comes available?
No, you're confusing it with soft. Reread the man page (e.g.): http://linux.die.net/man/5/nfs
I'll revisit this as soon as I can and change the option from hard to soft on all 3 machines.
Is this (using NFS server/client) a reasonable solution in a situation like this? Is there a better way to do this? (no central server, and wanting to share a partition on each drive across a small home network).
Well it's better not to design your network like this, with circular mounts, but it is possible.
I would prefer a central NFS server with clients linking in (which is what I have on my own home network), but in this case, that isn't so easy. The home network in this case is essentially 3 personal computers (for family members) that may or may not be on. They want to be able to easily access a share partition on each of the 3 computers from any one of the 3 computers... if there is a better/more reliable way to do this, I'd be happy to give it a go. They initially tried the Share feature in the file manager (Dolphin), but that was... unpredictable. YAST does this so much better.
Hmm, you should see some change. Start again using soft mounts, don't use file managers for now, just command lines and please post the results of your commands and the relevant status messages in the logs.
Also, if you're mounting from fstab and it's still not working, try setting the fstab line to noauto and then mount manually after booting completes. That may help to pinpoint the problem.
The only computer that had any direct fstab editing is the Kubuntu one (providing yet another reason for me to dislike that distro). I've used YAST to do the openSUSE machines - which by the way, really raised up openSUSE in the eyes of the people I am helping out... they saw the ugly manual CLI method for Ubuntu, and then saw how slick and easy it was in YAST. The next question I was asked was... how hard will it be to wipe Kubuntu and install openSUSE on that 3rd machine :-) But that's another project for another day (there are issues around VMWare that needs to run on this 3rd machine, and openSUSE 11.1 not playing so nice just yet with VMWare). Anyway, as soon as I can get remote access again to those computers, I will try out soft and noauto options and see if that clears up the issues. Thanks for the extra info. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 12:59 +0100, Clayton wrote:
Is this normal? Shouldn't the intr option allow for the possibility of a NFS sever not being available, essentially pushing the mount attempts to the background, and silently mounting the NFS when the server comes available?
No, you're confusing it with soft. Reread the man page (e.g.): http://linux.die.net/man/5/nfs
I'll revisit this as soon as I can and change the option from hard to soft on all 3 machines.
Is this (using NFS server/client) a reasonable solution in a situation like this? Is there a better way to do this? (no central server, and wanting to share a partition on each drive across a small home network).
Well it's better not to design your network like this, with circular mounts, but it is possible.
I would prefer a central NFS server with clients linking in (which is what I have on my own home network), but in this case, that isn't so easy. The home network in this case is essentially 3 personal computers (for family members) that may or may not be on. They want to be able to easily access a share partition on each of the 3 computers from any one of the 3 computers... if there is a better/more reliable way to do this, I'd be happy to give it a go. They initially tried the Share feature in the file manager (Dolphin), but that was... unpredictable. YAST does this so much better.
I would suggest to use an small machine as a central point in in your network, acting as firewall, mail-hub, nfs-server, backup-server, etc etc... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hans Witvliet wrote:
I would suggest to use an small machine as a central point in in your network, acting as firewall, mail-hub, nfs-server, backup-server, etc etc...
I thought the general idea was to have as little as possible running on the firewall, to limit security issues. -- Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 13:42 -0500, James Knott wrote:
Hans Witvliet wrote:
I would suggest to use an small machine as a central point in in your network, acting as firewall, mail-hub, nfs-server, backup-server, etc etc...
I thought the general idea was to have as little as possible running on the firewall, to limit security issues.
If one can aford it, or is willing to. One _additional_ firewall is better than just a bunch of machines with their own host-based-firewalls, that are perhaps of questionable quality. To save iron, some use shorewall FW...., doing just iptables and class-based queueing. hw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hans Witvliet said the following on 01/05/2009 01:37 PM:
I would suggest to use an small machine as a central point in in your network, acting as firewall, mail-hub, nfs-server, backup-server, etc etc...
I would suggest two. Its simpler and safer not to mix the firewall with the other functions. Go along to the Salvation Army or whatever your national or subnational thrift store is (Oxfam, Goodwill ...) and pick up a old machine for about $10. Add a extra network card and install IPCOP (or any one of a dozen others you might find at http://www.livecdlist.com/ ). it doesn't need to be powerful, its only filtering packets. It doesn't need a monitor, these things are controlled via a HTTPS-link (*NOT* to port 80!) or SSH. Things like IPCOP - which I'm using at the moment (and I didn't always and probably won't always, but its there right now) can support DMZ and wireless zones and are very small and lightweight. I run IPCOP on a P1 with 64M of memory. Its much safer *NOT* to put anything that you might want to protect on the firewall. Think of the firewall as a software fuse. You want a "deny all except that which is explicitly permitted" policy, and you want to be sure that if you make any mistakes things don't get past the firewall. The most common mistake is to have 'protected' information *ON* the firewall. Yes, I know its tempting, all that computing power going spare ... That's why I recommend a low-end machine so you don't get tempted. Of course in a commercial/industrial setting the situation is very different from the "family at home" one. -- There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. Henry Kissinger -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (5)
-
Anton Aylward -
Clayton -
Dave Howorth -
Hans Witvliet -
James Knott