[ebolla]

I have a Server running Red Hat Linux 9 and I use NFS to connect my powerMac running OSX10.3.2 to the server (we also have 2 ibooks and a XP machine in the house that use samba). I want as seemless of a connection to the server as possible and the ability to host home folders from the server thats why I chose NFS for the PowerMac. Unfortunatley the NFS connection regularly is lost causing me to reconnect using NFS Manager several times a day. I've gotten Netatalk running well on the Linux box except that the stable release of Netatalk does not support long file names and is therefore unusable.

Does anyone know how I can keep the NFS connections from disconnecting?
Also has anyone worked with Netatalk 2.0 because that version supports long file names but is still in Alpha stage development?

thanks for the help

[utidjian]

Originally posted by ebolla:
I have a Server running Red Hat Linux 9 and I use NFS to connect my powerMac running OSX10.3.2 to the server (we also have 2 ibooks and a XP machine in the house that use samba). I want as seemless of a connection to the server as possible and the ability to host home folders from the server thats why I chose NFS for the PowerMac. Unfortunatley the NFS connection regularly is lost causing me to reconnect using NFS Manager several times a day. I've gotten Netatalk running well on the Linux box except that the stable release of Netatalk does not support long file names and is therefore unusable.

Does anyone know how I can keep the NFS connections from disconnecting?
Also has anyone worked with Netatalk 2.0 because that version supports long file names but is still in Alpha stage development?

thanks for the help

I have been using NFS on Linux (Red Hat 7.2 server, now RH9). There are a couple of points for stability.

How are you exporting the shares? (your /etc/exports file).

Mac OS X "Panther" has a "broken" NFS file locking implementation in that it is incompatible with ALL NFS servers except the latest Mac OS X server. For reliable mounts on the Mac OS X client side you need to turn off file locking. On each client you must edit your /etc/hostconfig file and add the line:

NFSLOCKS=-NO-

(I don't remember if you have to reboot after that).

You say you are using NFSManager to mount the shares. I have not used it. I do a manual mount:

mount_nfs -P servername:/home /home

This works well and is quite stable. I haven't gotten automount sorted out yet which would be far more convenient than having to do the mount by hand... which requires admin priveleges.

Incidentally NFS file locking was not broken in "Jaguar" because it didn't do file locking at all! So by turning it off you are not really losing anything over Jaguar.

I have been using stable versions of netatalk for years with very little problem for both Mac OS 9 and OS X clients. I haven't tried 2.0 yet.

[ebolla]

yes the shares are being exported from the redhat box.
i tried changing the /etc/hostconfig file on the Mac as you suggested but still the NFS connection blanks out regularly
it is expecially prone to disconnect when transfering large numbers of files from the Mac to the Linux box

I've also noticed that file transfers take obsenely longer over NFS than they do over smb (like 4 minutes vs 2 hours) Are these comon problems with OSX.3 and NFS? Samba has issues with filenames and Netatalk doesnt support long file names(yet) so I'd like to stick with NFS if I can get it working properly.

[ul1984]

for a few weeks ive been using a FreeBSD 5 box to host my OS X home dirs, using NFS. been working great, mounted using NFS manager, and usernames and password exported using NIS

no disconnects, no problems at all, maybe you should consider switching to freebsd 5?

[utidjian]

Originally posted by ebolla:
yes the shares are being exported from the redhat box.
i tried changing the /etc/hostconfig file on the Mac as you suggested but still the NFS connection blanks out regularly
it is expecially prone to disconnect when transfering large numbers of files from the Mac to the Linux box

Well I have been testing it here (at home at the moment)... and everyhting seems to be fine. I have a Mac cube running 10.3.2 and a Linux server running RH7.3, all up to date. I get comparable speeds using commandline cp to/from the cube. It is (not surprisingly) a tad faster doing the same cp to/from a Linux client. I also tried via Samba and get about the same performance as with NFS. I also get about the same performance but slightly slower (about 25%) by using the Finder for copying the files and folders. As a test set I used my installation folder for Fedora Core 1. About 1800 files and 1.95GB.

I've also noticed that file transfers take obsenely longer over NFS than they do over smb (like 4 minutes vs 2 hours) Are these comon problems with OSX.3 and NFS? Samba has issues with filenames and Netatalk doesnt support long file names(yet) so I'd like to stick with NFS if I can get it working properly.

Something must be fundamentally broken somewhere. That is a HUGE difference in performance. Have you tried running "dmesg" and/or
"tail -f /var/log/messages" on the server to see if anything interesting pops up? Anything unusual from "nfsstat"? Do you have a Linux client to test NFS with?

The only time I had a real problem with NFS, it was a clientside problem... actually it was a marginal ethernet cable.

Couple of questions:

* What does you /etc/exports file look like?
* Are both systems up to date?
* Can you test the server with a Linux client?
* Does this affect all your Mac clients?

You may also try looking at:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...de/ch-nfs.html

and any of the other manuals at:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/

-DU-...etc...