Large export list leads to "Invalid argument" errors when executing 'exportfs -r'

[Marc Schmitt <mschmitt@inf.ethz.ch>]

Hi all,

I'm using RedHat 7.3 as NFS server, kernel 2.4.18-27.7.xsmp, nfs-utils
1.0.3.

For each home directory, we make an entry into /etc/exports of the type:

/export/home/<login> @<login>(rw,sync)

The @<login> netgroups contain usually a whole bunch of machines in FQDN
notation.

This setup used to work fine, I could add a new entry to /etc/exports
and issue 'exportfs -r' and everything would work as expected, the new
home could be mounted on the machines in @<login>.

Somehow, with /etc/exports growing more and more (currently 137
entries), 'exportfs -r' started giving errors of the type:

<somehost part of @<login>>:/export/home/<login>: Invalid argument

Currently, I get three of those error lines for three entries in
/etc/exports. Lokks like it fails when it tries to unexport the entry,
'exportsfs -r -v' shows:

unexporting <somehost part of @<login>>:/export/home/<login> from kernel
<somehost part of @<login>>:/export/home/<login>: Invalid argument

I made several tests, even when I delete the line in /etc/exports for
<login>, 'exportfs -r' will still give this error. I've deleted the
corresponding entry in /var/lib/nfs/xtab but 'exportfs -r' would just
add it again, obviously it's cached in the kernel table.

Looking at 'showmount -a', I noticed that the server thinks, that
<somehost> has /export/home/<login> mounted, still. Even though the
client does not have the home mounted from the server. I mounted the
home on <somehost>, unmounted and issued 'exportfs -r' on the server and
the error message "somehost part of @<login>>:/export/home/<login>:
Invalid argument" did not appear again.

Interestingly, I have not seen this error message for linux clients. The
two machines I have seen it for are:
- SunOS 5.9
- IRIX64 6.5
But then I'm seeing this error for a week only, now.

The server seems to work fine, though. Even if it reports an error for
<somehost>, <somehost> can mount the corresponding home. I just wanted
to report this issue and will gladly provide more infos if required.

Regards,
   Marc



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