Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!bruce
From: bruce@cs.su.oz (Bruce Janson)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs
Subject: Re: NFS problem
Message-ID: <1425@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>
Date: 4 Nov 90 13:16:24 GMT
Sender: news@cluster.cs.su.oz.au
Reply-To: bruce@cluster.cs.su.oz (Bruce Janson)
Lines: 50

In article <1180@appli.se> niklas@appli.se (Niklas Hallqvist) writes:
>..
>Ok, here's an example... I'm running on NCR Tower 650 with UnixV.3
>(rel. 030001) and NFS 04.00.00.  The current diretory is
>residing on a machine running 386/ix 2.0.2 and NFS 2.0.0.
>
>Example 1, Change of permissions.
>..
>Example 2, Change of owning user.
>..
>Example 3, Change of owning group.
>..
>replaced by one bits.  I want to enhance the fact that this only occurs
>when running on the NCR and using NFS-mounted partitions from a 386/ix
>node.  Not the other way around, or when a 386/ix machine replaces the
>NCR in my scenario.  It just occurred to me, that it really might by
>the NCR NFS being the bandit here.  The question is:  How many bits
>is a NFS attribute? 16 or 32?  If it is 32, the problem might be that
>the NCR just supplies a 16-bit value of -1, which in the 32-bit context
>surely gets evaluated to 65535.  But if the number of bits is 16, I can't
>..

Niklas,
    If it is any consolation we here have experienced similar
behaviour between our NFS clients and servers.  First it was
between MIPS RISC/os 4.0 and SunOS 3.5.2 machines, then it was
between MIPS RISC/os 4.0 and MIPS RISC/os 4.5 machines.
The mismatch was, as you guessed, in the client v. server
interpretation of exactly what constituted a "-1" (i.e. "ignore")
value in an nfs_setattr() call.
Fortunately we did have MIPS RISC/os 4.0 kernel source (for *almost* all
of our MIPS machines) and so could implement a simple fix.

I guess it is up to you and your suppliers now to argue over
the precise meaning of the NFS spec. and so determine who
must change...
(Do they both attend the Connectathon?)

Cheers,
bruce.

Bruce Janson
Basser Department of Computer Science
University of Sydney
Sydney, N.S.W., 2006
AUSTRALIA

Internet:	bruce@basser.cs.su.oz.au
Telephone:	+61-2-692-3264
Fax:		+61-2-692-3838