Solaris

Hi

Inexplicably, nfsd no longer starts automatically on our Sun boxes running Solaris 9, so that 'automount' no longer functions automatically. The problem first manifested itself when we could not access files on any of the nfs automounted directories in our LAN after one of the servers (say server A) was rebooted. Attempts to 'cd' to any of the directories on server B served up by server A were met with a 'permission denied'. 'ps - ef | grep nfsd' revealed that 'nfsd' was not running. Meanwhile 'automount' was issueing the message: 'server A not responding' though we could 'ping' server A just fine. We then rebooted server B, and its 'nfsd' too failed to start at boot up, leading to the same 'automount' problem on server A. Starting 'nfsd' manually on both systems fixes the 'automount' problem on both. Perhaps because of whatever caused this behavior, we are no longer able to access these servers using 'SSH' or 'sftp'. Regular non-secure 'ftp' works, but only within the LAN (we are behind an institution-wide firewall). This behavior just came out of the blue, as up until this week these servers have behaved extremely well and reliably for a few years, in providing all kinds of services and resources. Please help!

When was the last change to the nfs startup scripts and inittab? To find out, use
ls -ld /etc/init.d /etc/init.d/nfs.server
ls -ld /etc/rc3.d /etc/rc3.d/*nfs.server
ls -l /etc/inittab

When nfsd is not running, does "/etc/init.d/nfs.server start" restart it? Is the box in run level 3? Use "who -r" to verify. If not, what does: "grep initdefault /etc/inittab" say?

UNIX Daemon:

Thank you for replying. The change to nfs start up script was on Fri 3/11, when I added 'set -x' at the very top, then I rebooted the system.

nmr% ls -ld /etc/init.d/nfs.server
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 2777 Mar 11 15:34 /etc/init.d/nfs.server*

nmr% ls -ld /etc/rc3.d /etc/rc3.d/*nfs.server

drw-r--r-- 2 root sys 512 Aug 20 2003 /etc/rc3.d/
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 2777 Mar 11 15:34 /etc/init.d/nfs.server*

nmr% ls -l /etc/inittab
-rwxr--r-- 1 root sys 1081 Jun 14 2002 /etc/inittab

"/etc/init.d/nfs.server start" does start nfsd when it fails to start at boot up, and that is how we are able to regain 'mount' functionality... And the system appears to be in run level 3.

nmr% who -r
. run-level 3 Mar 11 15:34

Though my 'dfstab' is populated with several 'share....', the shareall command does not appear to be executed at boot up since 'sharetab' is empty after a reboot. Manually typing 'shareall' repopulates 'sharetab'...

Any thoughts?

Did you make a typo? I don't see a link to nfs.server in /etc/rc3.d in the output you posted. The existence of that link is crucial and its absence could explain why nfs is not being started.

UNIX Daemon:

I just did a cut and paste of the commands you suggested so that I can rule out typo, unless there was one in yout post. I see no link in rc3.d to nfs.server if there's supposed to be one:

nmr% ls -ld /etc/rc3.d /etc/rc3.d/*nfs.server
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 512 Aug 20 2003 /etc/rc3.d/
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 2777 Mar 11 15:34 /etc/rc3.d/S15nfs.server*

explicity in rc3.d

nmr% ls -l /etc/rc3.d
total 48
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 1708 Apr 6 2002 README
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 2124 Apr 6 2002 S13kdc.master*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 1239 Apr 6 2002 S14kdc*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 2777 Mar 11 15:34 S15nfs.server*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 707 Apr 6 2002 S16boot.server*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 621 Apr 6 2002 S34dhcp*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 1496 Mar 2 2002 S50apache*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 616 Apr 6 2002 S76snmpdx*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 1056 Apr 6 2002 S77dmi*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 344 Apr 6 2002 S80mipagent*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 1508 Apr 6 2002 S89sshd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 19 Jan 7 2002 S90hpjfpmd -> /etc/init.d/hpjfpmd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 21 Jan 7 2002 S90hpwebjetd -> /etc/init.d/hpwebjetd*
-rwxr--r-- 6 root sys 324 Mar 2 2002 S90samba*
-rwxr-xr-x 5 root bin 461 Jan 31 2002 S99sunpci.server*
nmr%

If this link missing, what should it look like and how do I restore it? Why did it just disappear!?!?


Thanks

The link appears to be there. You apparently have ls aliased to add some extra options. So the starup scripts look good and I'm not sure what to tell you...

My bet would be that the nfs startup is hanging for some reason, especially since you don't get the ssh functionality, the script does not return so the startup sequence does not continue.

Have a look at the output from ptree and see if the /etc/rc3.d/S15nfs.server is still running, if so this is where the problem lies, as for the actual cause of it hanging, you might also get a clue from there, or maybe post that output.
If you do post, please be sure to remove any reference to your hostname/ipaddress from the post.