I have a client and a server machine, both running Gentoo and both on a 100mbit Ethernet LAN. NFS is unusably slow between these two machines. I can mount filesystems, I can cd around, I can ls -l, but as soon as I try to read or write files, the NFS server hangs. Sometimes I might get a single chunk of data first, but most often I get nothing. There are no firewalls between the two machines. In the dmesg on the client machine, I see the following: nfs warning: mount version older than kernel nfs: server deneb not responding, still trying nfs: server deneb not responding, still trying nfs: server deneb not responding, still trying I tried recompiling util-linux (which contains mount), portmap and nfs-utils, on both machines, all to no avail. I've poked in the forums, but didn't see anything helpful there. emerge --info on the server machine (deneb): Portage 2.0.50-r9 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.3, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.6.7-hardened-r6) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.7-hardened-r6 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 distcc 2.13 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [enabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r4 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -mcpu=pentium3 -falign-functions=4 -pipe -mmmx -msse -mfpmath=sse -fstack-protector" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/bind /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -mcpu=pentium3 -falign-functions=4 -pipe -mmmx -msse -mfpmath=sse -fstack-protector" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache distcc sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X acl apache1 apm berkdb cdr crypt cups encode esd exiscan-acl foomaticdb gdbm gif gtk gtk2 imap innodb java jpeg ldap libg++ libwww mad maildir mikmod mysql ncurses nls nptl odbc oggvorbis pam pdflib perl png postgres python readline samba sasl slang spell ssl tcltk tcpd tetex x86 xchattext xml2 zlib" emerge --info on the client machine (alnath): Portage 2.0.50-r9 (default-x86-2004.0, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.4.20040619-r1, 2.6.7-ck5) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.7-ck5 i686 Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 2.00GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.5.2 distcc 2.16 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [enabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r4 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4 -mcpu=pentium4 -pipe -mmmx -msse -msse2 -mfpmath=sse" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4 -mcpu=pentium4 -pipe -mmmx -msse -msse2 -mfpmath=sse" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache distcc nostrip userpriv" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.ccccom.com http://gentoo.ccccom.com http://gentoo.noved.org/" MAKEOPTS="-j4" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X aac aalib acl acpi aim alsa arts artswrappersuid avi berkdb cap cdr chroot crypt cups dga directfb dvd encode escreen esd ethereal fam fbcon flac foomaticdb gd gdbm gif gtk gtk2 imap imlib innodb jabber java jpeg junit kde lcms libg++ libwww mad maildir mikmod mmx mng motif mpeg ncurses nls nptl odbc offensive oggvorbis opengl oscar oss pam pcmcia pcre pdflib perl pic png postgres python qt quicktime readline samba sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex theora tiff truetype usb wmf x86 xfs xinerama xml2 xmms xv zlib"
To rule out a slow DNS server try using just IP addresses. Check your server load and run the server in a debug mode and see if its a client or server problem.
I checked DNS like you suggested and that's not the problem (DNS is running on that server, anyway). Also, the server load is well below 1. The machine doesn't appear to be actively doing anything. How would I go about putting NFS on the server into debug mode? I poked around the rc scripts but didn't see anything, and of course, there's no documentation on the nfsd kernel module that I could see.
I switched to mounting using TCP, which seems to fix this problem. However, UDP still doesn't work.
I see exactly the same thing. It looks like there's a dependency on a new version of the mount stuff for 2.6. Here's a quote from a local NFS expert in response to a query: > 2.6 distros come with a new mount program to handle nfsv4. > > Sounds like you are using the older mount program. > > > I see very poor NFS performance when using a 2.6.8 kernel on my Gentoo > > box. dmesgs reports: "nfs warning: mount version older than kernel". > > My nfs mount options are proto=tcp,vers=3,rsize=32768,wsize=32768. > > A 2.4.26 kernel works just fine. > > > > Does anyone have idea what's going on here?
> nfs: server deneb not responding, still trying Are you still getting these when using ip instead of hostnames. Often this indicates hardware problems or nic-driver problems or firewalls. I had the same problems (even ping worked nice aslong as I didn't made packets close up to the ttl limit) and replacing the table-switch cured the problem.
should seek help on the nfs lists
