FC2/3 nfs export serves to FC2/3 but not Mac OS X

weegolo · 07-02-2005, 11:00 AM

I have three boxes on the same network: one FC2, one FC3 and one Mac OSX 10.3

Both Fedora boxes are exporting an nfs drive, for example:

Code:

[user@FC2 /]$ cat /etc/exports
/home  192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync)

... and each Fedora box quite happily mounts the other Fedora box's exported drive:

Code:

[user@FC2 /]$ cat /etc/fstab
<snip>
192.168.1.140:/Data   /FC3        nfs    soft,rw,nfsvers=2  0      0
<snip>

...and all is sweetness and light in the Fedora world.

However, when one of those flashy little Mac OS X jpbbies comes along with its oh-so-sleek design and smug little breathing white light, the two Fedora boxes join forces and snub it. To put this slightly more technically, they keep refusing the Mac access rights to their nfs exports. I'm getting a variety of errors:

If I try to connect through the Finder/mounts route on the Mac, I get some useless error about "cannot connect to the server as the original object is not present" (what on earth does that mean?)

If I try Finder->Go->Connect to Server, I get a "cannot connect, username or password not valid" dialogue box on the Mac, and using tethereal I can clearly see that the Fedora box is sending back an "Error: ERR_PERM" to the Mac.

Yet neither export is configured to require authentication, and at no point does the Mac give the ability to enter authentication credentials. The mac username is identical to a username on the FC boxes.

I know this is not a Mac forum, but I'm guessing that the FC boxes shouldn't be sending back that ERR_PERM message. Can anyone suggest how I can troubleshoot this? How can I work out what is causing that ERR_PERM to be sent?

Thanks in advance...
G

weegolo · 07-02-2005, 10:30 PM

I have answered my own question - nfs errors are logged in /var/log/messages, at which point I can see the slightly more descriptive error:

Code:

Jul  3 10:25:22 FC2 rpc.mountd: authenticated mount request from iBook:1015 for /home (/home)
Jul  3 10:25:22 FC2 last message repeated 4 times
Jul  3 10:25:22 FC2 kernel: nfsd: request from insecure port (192.168.1.130:49272)!

...and a quick google points out that Macs seem to connect from high numbered ports only. Adding the 'insecure' option to /etc/exports and restarting the nfs service works a treat:

Code:

/home  192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,insecure)