I have only a minimal knowledge of Linux/Unix so please bear with me.

I am trying to fix a problem at work. The problem is primarily with NFS services freezing up the system when it tries to load automatically. It may also be related to a possible problem with NISPlus and/or the system time.

This is a Redhat 9.0 system running the 2.4.20-8 kernal. as far as the services that may be involved, Redhat set the automatic startup priorities (run level 5) to 20 for autofs, 27 for nisplus and 60 for nfs services.

The first indication of a possible problem occurs when autofs starts. It indicates that it has started OK, but goes on to state: "Starting automount: name not served by this server. At this same point it used to state: "Starting automount: auto_home.org_dir: error in RPC subsystem". I'm not sure what caused the change. I still sometimes get the later error when trying to manually start autofs.

Next when NFS services tries to start, the system seems to stop. I then use CTRL-ALT-DEL to do a gracefull shutdown, boot in interactive mode and choose not to load NFS services.

When the system finishes loading Redhat, frequently the time is off by about eight hours and sometimes it reverts to the previous day. I have the timezone set to Pacific (correct for this location) have reset the date/time frequently from inside Gnome and also, frequently I have reset the date/time in the BIOS setup program.I do not have the time service enabled.

This system is only an NISplus client. It is not an NISplus server. It is however a DHCP server, and holds most of the home directories for the network.

The last time that I manually got everything started I:

1. Stopped, then started the nisplus service
2. Stopped, then started the nfs service
3. Stopped, then started autofs

At that time these restarted with no errors. I know from past experience, if I reboot the system will "hang" again.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance, for any/all help.

Not sure if this will help you, but here are my notes on NFS.

NFS Configuration:

On the server or sharing computer--

1) Configure the files or directories you want to export this is done in the
/etc/exports file.
The file contents indicate the dir/files to share.

FILE FORMAT: DIR HOST(options) # Comments

EXAMPLE: /home laptop(rw) # share with laptop
/home 10.0.0.11(rw) # share with ip address
/home 192.168.1.0/25.255.255.0 # with network
/home domain.my.domain # share with domain

2) Turn on NFS:
To enable it on next boot use: # chkconfig nfs on
enables file locking # chkconfig nfslock on

To enable it without boot use: # /etc/init.d/nfs start
# /etc/init.d/nfslock start

3) Edit the /etc/hosts file to list all hosts on the domain to be able th share
by name.

4) export the newly created share by issuing
# /usr/sbin/exportfs -a -v

On the clients or computers to be shared with--

5) Create a mount point for the share this can be done anywhere. Use /mnt.
Create a new directory in /mnt ( # mkdir /mnt/server )

6) Test the mount point by mounting the new share.
mount server:/home /mnt/server

Or with options:
mount -o rw,bg,intr,soft server:/home /mnt/server

To mount the export automatically in NFS:
7) Edit the /etc/fstab file.

FILE FORMAT:
host:directory mountpoint nfs options 0 0

Example:
server:/home /mnt/server nfs rw,bg,intr,soft 0 0

***Always remember the last two zeros this tells linux not to dump the contents of the file system and not to run fsck on it.