I was given an old 266 pentium I that now runs Slackware 10.1. The other machine is a multiboot with nfs-kernel-server installed in Mepis. The machines are linked together by a d-link DI604 router.

I figured this would be a good time to learn some networking, which I know next to nothing about. The problem at the moment is mounting the shared directory takes about 4 to 5 minutes. Once mounted it does everything hoped for.

>portmap is running
>the entry in /etc/exports>/home/me/bin 192.168.0.100(rw) (it defaults to sync)
>all firewalls disabled
>the command used to mount>mount -t nfs -o rw 192.168.0.101:/home/me/bin /mnt/slackbox/
>The OPTIONS line in /etc/default/portmap is commented out

I would like to solve this before making the rest of changes to finish the setup. If more information is needed I will gladly provide it.

1) Any messages in the logfiles on .101?
2) Do you have DNS running? If so, can you do a forward *and* reverse lookup for .101 from .100?
3) Is there an entry for .101 in the /etc/hosts file on .100?

CDollmont

Thankyou for you're reply and sorry for the long delay responding. Shortly after posting I was called away, a hazard of my occupation.

The answer to your questions to the best of my ability;

1) Not sure what log files to check. /var/log/syslog shows;
APR 23 0:9:16:24 localhost mountd[4079]: authenticated mount request from 192.168.0.100:939 for /home/jeffb/bin (/home/jeffb/bin)
there is no mention of failed attempts, umount works very quickly. The mount command seems to take 5min reliably.

2) OK, I don't know much about DNS other than connecting the router to the ISP's DNS. The d-link uses dhcp locally. The 192 addresses are static, permanently bound to the MAC addresses. Is DNS something I need to understand for the LAN side of the network? This is new territory to me.

3) No, /etc/hosts on 100 (foobar, the client) contains these lines
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 foobar.localdomain foobar

The guide I've been using makes no mention of needing portmap running on the client machine. Another guide suggests this is needed. Any idea which one is right?

/etc/resolve.conf is identical on both machines;
nameserver 192.168.0.1
this is the address of the router.

Just to clean up this thread and possibly help someone else;
The /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2 script in Slackware reads in part "If you do not run portmap, NFS partitions will not mount properly"
Setting rpc.portmap to start at boot on the client machine solved the problem.