NFS problems

[jjanderson5]

I have been running Kubuntu version 9.10 for a while now and I'm just getting around to
setting up NFS, but I'm having some problems.

For now I have two PCs each setup to run as an NFS client and server. The two hosts are
peewee and furillo. Peewee has two file systems that I want to mount, 'library' and 'backup'.
Furillo has one file system to mount, 'home'. Furillo is a dual boot system where I can run
linux or windows. Peewee runs linux only.

On furillo, the fstab file included:

192.168.0.5:/media/library /mnt/library nfs rw 0 0
192.168.0.5:/media/backup /mnt/backup nfs rw 0 0

Problem 1
_____________
When I boot furillo, backup is mounted automatically, but not library. Are there any suggestions
on why one would mount, but not the other.

Problem 2
_____________
When I started to set up to run nfs, I was running furillo on the network using a wireless
connection. I would like to run nfs using the wireless connection. Can I do this? Do I
simply use whatever network address shows up for the wireless connection? Now that
I'm thinking about it, that should work and I just have to try it.

Problem 3
_____________
When I turn off the wireless connection and connect the ethernet cable, I can not
mount files. When I run 'route', is shows an empty router table. If I try to run:
'route add default gw 192.168.0.1', I get an error message that there is not process.
I cannot figure out how to get the router set up properly. If I shutdown, boot up
Windows, this makes the connection with the router. Then if I reboot and bring up
linux, my router table is now set and I can run mount nfs commands.

Is there someway I can get router setup without having to boot and reboot?


Problem 4
____________
Yesterday, when I was bringing up NFS, I was able to manually NFS mount the file systems
on both peewee and furillo and I could see files on all 3 file systems. I was experimenting with
NFS and when I rebooted furillo, I was able to run the NFS mount commands and the ran
without an error message. If I run 'mount', the file systems show up as being mounted,
but if I run 'ls' on the mounted directories, the directories are empty. If I run 'ls' peewee
to look at the furillo file system, I can see the files.

Are there any suggestions on why I can see files on furillo from peewee, but not the
files from peewee on furillo?


Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help.

Regards,
Jim Anderson

[jjanderson5]

Re: NFS problems


Problem 4 is solved. I'm embarrassed to say the I had forgotten to mount the file systems of
'library' and 'backup' on peewee. When I mount them on peewee, I can see them from furillo using
NFS.

Jim

[sithlord48]

Re: NFS problems

for problem 1 you might want to double check you /etc/exports on the server so sounds like you flubed a char or something simple ..

problem 2, yes you can do that, but in any case i would think the easiest course of action is to set your router to staticly assign the ip addresses to both the wired and wireless of each machine that way you know your ips are always correct. (and you makes solution to 3 ezer..)

problem 3, this sounds mainly like a network issue, use the network manager to enable/disable the interfaces,, also you could be angering the hosts.deny or hosts.allow files of the serving machine. i have seen routers set wifi clients starting sometime 20 addresses higher then where it would start wired ones.

[jjanderson5]

Re: NFS problems


Thank you for help. You made a lot of helpful suggestions. I apprecitate the
help!! I do have some follow questions/comments.

Jim


Problem 1
-------------------
I'm pretty sure the /etc/exports file is set up properly because I can manually
mount the exported file systems from the client. If there is a simple error, I would suspect
the /etc/fstab file on the client. When I double check this file, the entries are:

192.168.0.5:/media/Library /mnt/Library nfs rw 0 0
192.168.0.5:/media/BackUp /mnt/BackUp nfs rw 0 0

I have visually checked the typing and I have also done a copy/paste of the named directories
and done an 'ls /mnt/Library' for each of the named directories on the respective client
and server. The two directories identical except for the name itself, yet BacklUp automatically,
but not Library.


Problem 2
______________

Thanks for confirming that wireless should work. I will give that a try. Eventually, I plan
to move back to static routing, but I had to move to dynamic routing because I had
a routing problem and the drones at Verizon would not support problems with static
routing. I had to switch to get help and have not swtiched back yet.

Problem 3
___________

I have only been using version 9.10 a short while and I cannot find the 'network
manager' features that I have been looking for. From the main menu, I can bring
up Settings --> System Settings. This brings up a window that has 'Network &
Connectivity" which has a submenu for 'Network Settings' and 'Sharing'.
Under 'Network Settings', I see 'Proxy', 'Connection Preferences' and 'Service Directory'.

I don't see anyplace to enable/disable network interfaces. Can you provide more
information on where I have to look to control the interfaces?

[oshunluvr]

Re: NFS problems

Problem 1:
Have you checked folder permissions and user/group settings? Check all folders on both client and server. Also check dmesg for errors relating to mount.

Problem 2:

This is a multi-level issue.

2a: Mounting a share using DHCP vs. static IP (regardless of wired or wireless) is as simple as defining hostnames properly and using them to mount;

i.e. use
peewee://media/Library /mnt/Library nfs rw 0 0
instead of
192.168.0.5:/media/Library /mnt/Library nfs rw 0 0

2b: In days past, mounting network shares using wireless has been problematic because the network had to wait to connect until the user had logged in. There are various ways to handle this and in fact it may be resolved. I don't regularly use wireless on my linux machines so I'd hate to give any bad advice. Possible issues/solutions include boot hanging at fstab processing due to shares not being available/ set "no auto" so shares don't mount at boot.

Problem 3:
Odd router behavior. I assume you're using the Verizon router for FIOS or ADSL? You might try the Verizon forums, but you and I both know what you'll get from Verizon help desk - nada.

I'd start with looking into issues related to the router itself - searching forums and such.

As far as network settings and the like - IMO KDE4 Network Manager is really a Mis-Manager. If you're still using it - I'd search this forum and find the how-to on totally removing it, them install wicd instead. In fact - this may solve your router problem. It's possible Network Mis-Manager is pushing a setting that is throwing your router off.

For your wired-only machines, you need only edit /etc/network/interfaces and set either static or DHCP.

Added tip: Depending on your network speed and reliability, you may want to increase the block size. I use the maximum rsize=32768,wsize=32768 (add this to your fstab mount command as options) without any issues.