nfs mount not behaving as expected (according to man pages)

pwabrahams · 10-30-2007, 05:57 PM

Im running OpenSuSE 10.3, and I'm having a problem in getting two nfs mounts to work properly. Here's what is in /etc/fstab:

Code:

pwa@suillus:~> cat /etc/fstab | grep hp
hpmediavault:/shares/Volume1/FileShare  /mediavault nfs auto,users,rw,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=30,retry=5
hpmediavault:/shares/Volume1/MediaShare /musicvault nfs auto,users,rw,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=30,retry=5

Despite the presence of auto and the permissive settings of timeo and retry, the mount does not happen at boot time:

Code:

pwa@suillus:~> mount | grep hp

Furthermore, despite the presence of users, (I also tried user), an ordinary user can't do the mount:

Code:

pwa@suillus:~> mount /mediavault
mount: hpmediavault:/shares/Volume1/FileShare failed, reason given by server: Permission denied
pwa@suillus:~> mount /musicvault
mount: hpmediavault:/shares/Volume1/MediaShare failed, reason given by server: Permission denied

However, root can do it:

Code:

pwa@suillus:~> sudo mount -a
pwa@suillus:~> mount | grep hp
hpmediavault:/shares/Volume1/FileShare on /mediavault type nfs (rw,users,noexec,nosuid,nodev,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=30,retry=5,addr=192.168.0.104)
hpmediavault:/shares/Volume1/MediaShare on /musicvault type nfs (rw,users,noexec,nosuid,nodev,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=30,retry=5,addr=192.168.0.104)

Here is the description of auto from the mount man page:

Quote:

auto
Can be mounted with the -a option.

(The mount at boot time is done with mount -a, I believe.)

And here is the description of users from that man page:

Quote:

users
Allow every user to mount and unmount the file system. This option implies the options noexec, nosuid, and nodev (unless overridden by subsequent options, as in the option line users,exec,dev,suid).

So what am I missing?

Brian1 · 10-30-2007, 06:02 PM

Networking more than likely has not started yet before running the fstab file.
Change the auto to noauto so it will not be trying to mount yet.
Now not a Suse user but would say there is some knid of script that is started near the end of the boot process. In that add you mount -a command.
In Redhat type distros there is /etc/rc.local script.

Only root can use the mount command unless you let others through sudo.

Brian

pwabrahams · 10-30-2007, 06:17 PM

It seems that an ordinary user can actually issue the mount command, since it works perfectly well without parameters and gives the mount status. I was able to use user in /etc/fstab in the previous version of OpenSuSE (10.2) and there an ordinary user was able to do the mount.

As to noauto: specifying it means that mount -a won't work at all, so there's a loss of functionality in doing that. Nevertheless I can still follow your suggestion about inserting mount -a in one of the init scripts. But as I read the manual, the mount is retried until it times out (which I don't think it does), so it should happen after a while anyway. And it doesn't.

Brian1 · 10-30-2007, 07:03 PM

You are right about the noauto not working with the mount -a command.
I just leave mine as noauto and then use the mount command to mount the defineed share.

Brian

pwabrahams · 10-31-2007, 09:09 AM

Bugzilla at Novell reports that the problem with user not working is a bug, which can be fixed by setting the suid bit for mount.nfs. It hasn't been fixed yet because of security issues, but it's set in Kubuntu.

The situation with auto is less clear. Others have reported the problem, but it hasn't been pinned down yet.

pwabrahams · 11-03-2007, 02:35 PM

In the file /etc/init.d/after.local, which gets executed after all other initializations, I put this:

Code:

rpc.statd
mount -a

Now I get the automatic mounting and activation of rpc.statd, albeit with a delay of a couple of minutes. Of course, that shouldn't be necessary.

That file may have other locations in distributions other than OpenSuSE 10.3 (but perhaps those other distributions don't have the problem in the first place!).

gsancosme · 02-24-2008, 11:04 AM

Perhaps am I late on this, but for the boot mount to be enabled, you just have to start nfs client deamon at startup. (as root : chkconfig nfs 35) or with YaST.

JATA01 · 10-21-2008, 11:09 PM

Why the rsize and wsize is fixed 8192 in nfs???

Thanks-