Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!nlm-mcs!ncifcrf!randy
From: randy@ncifcrf.gov (The Computer Grue)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Lots of NFS cross mounts?
Message-ID: <371@ncifcrf.ncifcrf.gov>
Date: 5 Apr 88 14:44:42 GMT
References: <106600042@datacube>
Reply-To: randy@ncifcrf.gov (The Computer Grue)
Organization: NCI Supercomputer Center
Lines: 35

In article <106600042@datacube> berger@datacube.UUCP writes:
>	One thing that makes us nerveous is a problem we have seen on our
>	current set up. The problem is when one server is down but clients
>	have partitions of the downed server NFS mounted.  The clients get
>	bogged down even when they are not explicitly trying to access
>	partitions on the downed server. We are using Soft mounts.... 

    I believe I understand this problem, and it might make useful
  information for many.  When a user logs in, the login program
  automatically runs the quota program for all mounted file systems.
  This looks for the file 'quotas' in the top directory of the mounted
  file system.  This is, of course, an NFS access, and if the system
  is down can cause login to hang for a *long* (well, relativeley
  long.  A minute per fs) time.  There are two solutions.  One (what I
  would recommend) is to mount all of those file systems with the
  noquota option in fstab; this should prevent the check.  The other
  (call it the quick and dirty method) is to make /usr/ucb/quota a
  link to /bin/true.  That will sortof blow away the problem (at the
  expense of quotas being runnable, but you get what you pay for . .
  .) 

    Just so noone thinks I'm trying to take credit, both of these
  suggestions originated with SUN in their Tech bulletins.  I believe
  they were actually attributed to Chuq von Rospach.  In any case,
  they are rather useful.

						-- Randy



-- 
  Randy Smith    @	NCI Supercomputer Facility
  c/o PRI, Inc.		Phone: (301) 698-5660                  
  PO Box B, Bldng. 430  Uucp: ...!uunet!ncifcrf.gov!randy
  Frederick, MD 21701	Arpa: randy@ncifcrf.gov