stale NFS file handle (2.4.20) ext3 LVM

[Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de>]

Hi,

I rebooted one of my NFS servers (no configuration changed), and when it
came back up, all clients that had the exported file system mounted
(NFSv3 hard mount) reported stale NFS file handles, for the file system
root and for files within. The STALE error travelled across the wire
according to ethereal.

The server system runs SuSE Linux 8.2, they ship a 2.4.20 kernel with
some patches (POSIX ACL stuff, SuSE claim it's Solaris compatible,
haven't tested yet). Their start script is below.

The clients run SuSE Linux 8.1 with a patched 2.4.19 (no ACL stuff). The
server configuration wasn't changed across the reboot except for
replacing a SCSI terminator (I borrowed one I gave back when my own
arrived.)

Is there any known issue with NFS-exporting file systems that are hosted
in LVM volumes? Is there an issue with SuSE's ACL patches?

How is the file handle obtained and under what circumstances will it
become stale after a reboot? SuSE's RPM on the server is
nfs-utils-1.0.1-89.

I was under the impression that rebooting a server into the same
configuration would NOT give stale NFS file handles, in fact, this has
worked before with a SuSE Linux 8.1 server (but that one didn't use LVM
either, so there are two -- for me inseparable -- major differences
here.)

Sometimes on frustrated days like these I think I should just replace
this Linux NFS with Solaris. :-/

Can somebody point me to documents about NFS file handle internals or
try to explain the situation? Testing directions are welcome, as are
"kill LVM" or "kill ACL patches", the server isn't in production yet, so
there's still time to fix things for good. (Even kill SuSE, replace with
Debian/RedHat is an acceptable suggestion if there are technical
reasons.)

I also wonder if NFS clients should have a "masochistically_hard" mount
options that issue SIGKILL to processes that use stale NFS file handles,
I could use this...

SuSE 8.2 nfsserver start script excerpt (the nfslock daemon is started
before execution of this script):

      PARAMS=3
      test "$USE_KERNEL_NFSD_NUMBER" -gt 0 && PARAMS="$USE_KERNEL_NFSD_NUMBER"

      echo -n "Starting kernel based NFS server"
      /usr/sbin/exportfs -r
      /usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd $PARAMS
      startproc /usr/sbin/rpc.mountd
 
-- 
Matthias 'NFS sucks some days' Andree


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