Originally posted by GATTACA:
This is a good one:
Yesterday around 11am my tech support told me I had to update my password if I wanted to take advantage of their new remote access features. So I did.
About an hour later I tried connecting to my NFS share on the department server. I can mount the directory and read files from it. The trouble is that anytime I try and write data to the NFS mount (ie copy a bunch of local files from my mac to the NFS share), there is a long pause on my mac followed by an error message:
"A server you are using is no longer available. Do you want to continue trying to contact it? ... etc."
The options are "Disconnect" or "OK". Disconnect unmounts the NFS share and okay simply gives me back the same error message in a few moments.
After clicking on Disconnect I get this error message for the Copy command I tried to execute:
"The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "" could not be read or written. (Error code -36)."
And the copying fails.
The
most likely reason for this is Mac OS X borked method of file locking. This was not a problem with Jaguar (10.2.x) because the Jaguar NFS client didn't even have the capability for NFSLOCKS. In Panther (10.3.x) NFSLOCKS were added but they used a very non-standard sized cookie for NFSLOCKS. The reason I say "very" is because, while NFS is a very old and well known standard and usually works well across platforms, NFS file locking is not very well standardized in actual implementation. This issue appears to have been cleared up in one of the recent updates to Panther. I am not sure which one fixed it but if your system is current it shouldn't matter.
Now I've tried everything I could find including:
1) Verifying that my uid and gid are the same on both my powerbook and the linux server
2) Having IT restart the NFS daemon
3) Having IT execute 'exportfs -ra'
4) Adding a machine and mount to my powerbook using Netinfo Manager
5) Changing the file/directory permissions on the data I want to copy to the NFS share.
6) Mounting the NFS share via the command line using mount_nfs
1) Good thing to check.
2) Not neccesary.
3) Not neccesary.
4) How, exactly, did you do this.
5) Not neccesary.
6) What options did you use? Should be something like:
'sudo mount_nfs -P server:/someshare /somemountpoint'
7) Did you ask IT to check their /var/log/messages as you mounted and did reads and writes to a file or folder on the share?
8) How are you connected to the network, via ethernet cable or WiFi? If you do NFS via WiFi you will have issues.
9) Are you the only Mac OS X user on the network? If not, do any of the other users have the same problem?
10) What options are the shares exported with?
11) What are they using for authentication? Active Directory?
We have a terrible network setup at work. Our accounts are all done via a Winblows system and then somehow "mirrored" or "enabled" to our RedHat Linux 7.3 systems. So anything you change on a windows account is mirrored when you log into a RedHat Linux Box.
This sounds strange... could you explain further? Are the file servers Linux or Windows or both?
While it sounds great in principle it doesn't work to the extent that everyone just uses Winblows.
It should actually work in practice! I have been using Linux (specifically Red Hat 7.x, 9, and Fedora Core 2) to serve files to Windows, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Linux boxes for seven years... for the most part it "just works". I had to adjust the /etc/hostconfig file on the Macs when Panther broke NFS locking but that was easy to spot and fix. No longer a problem.
I've asked the IT for help and they say it's problem with my powerbook so they can't help me. Funny thing is NFS was working fine for me up until the moment I updated my network password on Windows. Additionall, I have no problem sharing via NFS on my home linux workstation.
Does your IT department "officially support" Mac OS X? If not you are going to have to hand feed them the info in order to fix it on their end.
For me, the situation is, if it doesn't work I have to fix it... but then I am the IT department where I work. There is a larger one but all they do is chase down Windows viruses and leave my subnets alone.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do? (Besides disembowel my IT support).
My powerbook specs are given in my signature.
As for the Red Hast NFS server, I believe its a RH Linux 7.3 system.
I normally connect to the NFS share by Go->Connect To Server
Buy them some beers instead... it will go a LONG way. Get them interested in helping you solve the problem. Do any of the IT people use Macs?
Find out more about how the whole server setup works. If you run Linux you should at least be able to "speak their language".
I set up my Macs to automount the shares from the Linux server. It is MUCH simpler than having users 'Go->Connect' or whatever. I can make changes to the shares and it is all transparent to the users... allt heir stuff is "just there". If your IT people are interested in setting it up that way lemme know.