Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

4.68. nfs-utils

Updated nfs-utils packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
The nfs-utils packages provide a daemon for the kernel Network File System (NFS) server, and related tools such as the mount.nfs, umount.nfs, and showmount.

Bug Fixes

BZ#726472
Previously, during an NFS service start, users encountered the following rpc.idmapd message "dirscancb: open(/var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs/nfs/clnt6a): No such file or directory." This was because the daemon "rpc.idmapd" scanned the /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs/nfs/ directory periodically looking for NFS client mounts to communicate to. The daemon tried to open communication with a client mount, but it disappeared in between looking for directory entries and opening them. NFS mount was umounted just before rpc.idmapd tried to communicate with it. This update requires Verbosity to be set to 1 or higher in order for the problem warning message to display. With the default Verbosity of 0, it is no longer logged, preventing it from clogging the logs with unhelpful messages.
BZ#873307
During system shutdown, the "umount" utility was called as part of a shutdown script, so the shutdown script failed to unmount the /var/ file system correctly. This was because the shutdown script searched for the /var/lock/subsys/nfs lock file, but could not find it because NFS service created the /var/lock/subsys/nfsd lock file. This update fixes the issue in the /etc/rc.d/rc script itself, so it tries to find nfsd and not the NFS lock file, and the shutdown script now successfully unmounts the file system.
BZ#892236
Previously, when the NFS service was started, messages that the RPC idmapd service was stopped and started were displayed. This occurred because in order to start NFS, the RPC idmapd service had to be restarted using the condrestart option (conditional restart), which starts RPC idmapd only if it is currently running. With this update, RPC idmapd messages are no longer displayed in the described scenario when the NFS service is started.
BZ#947552
Previously, the NFS version 3 of the MOUNT protocol was not fully supported. Therefore, the "showmount" utility did not work properly, and there were possible issues with the "umount" utility. Changes from the NFS version 2 protocol to the NFS version 3 protocol have required some adjustments to be made in the MOUNT protocol. To meet the needs of the NFS version 3 protocol, a new version of the MOUNT protocol has been defined. This new protocol satisfies the requirements of the NFS version 3 protocol, and addresses several other current market requirements. Thus, the "showmount" and "unmount" utilities now function as expected.
Users of nfs-utils are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs. After installing this update, the nfs service will be restarted automatically.