OpenOffice Opens NFS Files Read-Only
 

I'm posting this here because I keep having this problem and keep having a hard time remembering exactly how to resolve it. I'm guessing others will find themselves in the same situation.

Here's the problem: You install (or upgrade) OpenOffice, and it opens all files that are on network shares read-only, totally refusing to let you edit them; permissions are not the issue.

The cause is that OpenOffice wants to lock the file before it allows you to edit it, and for some reason or other file locking is not working on your network.

There are two solutions:

• Get file locking working. This usually seems to involve making sure rpc.statd is running on both the server and the client. But I have not investigated this in detail, as there is another solution that works for me.

• Find and edit the file
  Code:

  ---

  soffice

  ---

  . In it, you will find the following lines:
  
  Code:

  ---

  # file locking now enabled by default
SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING=1
export SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING

  ---

  Comment out the last two lines. Note that this disables file locking and so is potentially unsafe. As I said, it works for me, because the file in question is in my home directory, mounted from a NFS server, and I know no-one else has access.