When listing a directory on an NFS share, directory listing fails half way through with 'ls: reading directory .: Too many levels of symbolic links'

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • When listing a directory on the NFS client, the directory listing will fail after listing some of the files in the directory with:
ls: reading directory .: Too many levels of symbolic links'
  • The following message is visible in /var/log/messages of the NFS client:
Oct  2 18:24:47 hostname kernel: NFS: directory server.example.com/nfs contains a readdir loop.Please contact your server vendor.  
  • Duplicate files begin appearing on NFS shares.
  • Duplicate files on same directory.

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7(NFS server)
  • NFS server exports
    • ext4, ext3, or gfs2

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