Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!cmcl2!husc6!rice!sun-spots-request
From: hsi!stepstone.com!aad@uunet.uu.net (Anthony A. Datri)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: non-nfs things hang on nfs errors
Message-ID: <8812212123.AA04249@stepstone.com>
Date: 3 Jan 89 07:17:47 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Wed, 21 Dec 88 16:23:00 EST
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 83, message 7 of 22

The Scenario:  a 3/180 named stpstn and a 3/50 named fozzie (for example)
(both 3.2) Pretty much everything with a disk drive is cross mounted, and
fozzie's /usr is mounted on stpstn.  I find that when I'm on stpstn (or
any machine that has a remote partition mounted), and a remote server
stops responding (crash, retensioning a scsi tape, etc...), whatever I'm
doing hangs with "server foo not responding" until either the remote
server responds or I reboot the local machine.  df is a good example, but
it also happens if I'm doing something that isn't even remotely nfs
related.  Am I doing something wrong or is this an inherent problem?

[[ This is an inherent and well-known problem.  Things that don't appear
to be NFS related will actually get snarled in this trap.  If all your NFS
mount points are in the same directory, say "/", simple things like "pwd"
or a program calling "getwd" will, in certain situations, lock up.  --wnl
]]

Anthony A. Datri @SysAdmin(Stepstone Corporation) aad@stepstone.com stpstn!aad