NFS weirdness

Roostie02

New member
Aug 26, 2020
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Hi all, I just put a fresh install of irix 6.2 on my challenge S last night and quickly discovered a strange issue. In an NFS share I have mounted, I cannot go 3 subdirectories without being randomly placed in another directory.

ex: cd /skynet/IRIX/indy spits out "no such file or directory" but then pwd claims that I'm in "/skynet/x/x"

it does this for every directory I change into in just this NFS share. Do I need to setup something for NFS in 6.2? This share works perfectly fine on my indy running 5.3 and every other Linux machine that I own. any advice is greatly appreciated
 

stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
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Install any OS patches, I've read over and over that Irix 6.2 and such have faulty NFS. Even Irix 6.5 patches have fixes for NFS. Anyway that's what I'd do first :)
 

flexion

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Sep 23, 2020
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In an NFS share I have mounted, I cannot go 3 subdirectories without being randomly placed in another directory.
That's what I also noticed every time I tried to use NFS (accessing my NAS from IRIX).. but I gave up because I thought maybe it's the NAS and just stuck to command line ncFTP.
Thanks for the hint stormy, I will also check the patches!
 
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ghost180sx

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Dec 13, 2019
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The Great White North
What system is hosting the NFS share? A linux machine? And your Challenge is a client? Check the hosting system to see which versions of NFS are being supported, and possibly downgrade them or force them to NFSv3. If that still gives you grief, downgrade to version 2, and see if it helps you out.
 

Roostie02

New member
Aug 26, 2020
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What system is hosting the NFS share? A linux machine? And your Challenge is a client? Check the hosting system to see which versions of NFS are being supported, and possibly downgrade them or force them to NFSv3. If that still gives you grief, downgrade to version 2, and see if it helps you out.
I have a debian 10 box hosting the NFS server. I have the configuration file configured from nfsv4 all the way to v2 for my older sparcstations, so there shouldn't be any issues there. I'm gonna try what stormy suggested and see if I can find some patches for 6.2 somewhere
 
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Elf

Storybook / Retired, ex-staff
Feb 4, 2019
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Reposting from the Discord chat due to it being both interesting and relevant / worthy of preservation :)
Code:
rpajarola: I had a lot of trouble with IRIX+NFS (as served from Linux). I usually resort to unfsd for serving stuff to old machines, and it makes most of the problems go away
rpajarola: I even keep an old NFSv2-only version of it around. I don't think it's necessary, as an old client simply won't use/see NFSv3, but it works...
rpajarola: the error you see looks like truncated file handles
rpajarola: NFSv2 has a 32 byte max length, but modern file systems need more than 32 bytes to encode all necessary information and NFSv3 allows for longer handles
rpajarola: if you're at the intersection of NFSv2/v3 it's totally possible that you have a system that thinks it's v3 but actually can't cope with long file handles
rpajarola: try forcing v2 (that probably fixes it), and try if the underlying filesystem type on the server makes a difference (try serving e.g. a USB stick with ext3 on it instead of ext4)
 

stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
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Also - another thought - you can easily do the opposite, ie; setup your exports on the SGI and then mount them on your Linux machine for file copying ... I know what you're thinking 'but if I put them in my linux box fstab my system will hang if the sgi box isn't on during bootup, trying to find the network drive' But no! I have a wonderful fstab entry I use:

Code:
octane:/usr/people/stormy/nfs   /home/stormy/nfs/octanemount    nfs    rw,relatime,user,noauto   0   0
of course change 'octane:' to your ip/host and such. It will not mount until you try to access it! So here is a shot of my file manager in Manjaro gnome:
Screenshot from 2021-07-08 11-31-49.png
See the drive icons below trash? Cube, sgi300gb, sgihome etc etc - they are all unmounted NFS drives, and will only mount when I click them - meaning my machine doesn't rely on having these network shares up on boot time. Not sure if anyone else knows about this so thought I would share.
 
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flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
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Switzerland
trying to export an NFS share from IRIX.. I'm a bit confused as there is no /etc/exports file present on my irix box.
I created one with just "/usr/people/myuser -rw" and trying to mount from ubuntu.. is there anything else I have to do on IRIX? I don't assume NFS has to be installed additionally or enabled explicitly on IRIX?? (6.5.30)
 

Irinikus

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Dec 16, 2019
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www.youtube.com
I know that this is a bit off topic, but accessing my Tezro as an FTP from my Mac has proven to be very useful, using Cyberduck.

As I've always been able to copy files from my Mac to the Tezro via the NFS, but not the other way round!

The Cyberduck rout is very cool!
 
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flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
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I was using FTP all the time, but would prefer just having it mounted like a filesystem with drag&drop interaction instead.

So I've found the NFS configuration menu in systems manager and it's asking me for a CD-ROM.. if I "have bought" NFS... on which CD can I find NFS?
 

flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
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Switzerland
Thanks Irinikus! Downloaded it, but now the installer tells me "nfs.sw.nfs (NFS support) is incompatible with eoe.sw.base"... uhm!?
Will continue trying tomorrow.
 

flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
196
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Switzerland
I gave up again on NFS (in both directions) for various reasons. but turns out curlftpfs can mount a remote directory over FTP in linux just as cyberduck does and irix has FTP turned on by default.

I'm happy with this solution now, no need for NFS. And sorry for hijacking this thread.
 

stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
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@flexion I installed NFS the other day and I had the same confusion, but it's because you need to install that with the overlays at the same time. So you gotta add all the Irix cd's to the installer, then that nfs one, then install nfs.
 
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