NFS disconnects w/ OSX clients?

July 5, 2009 7:55 PM

Why do my OSX NFS clients randomly disconnect from my Linux (Ubuntu) NFS server?

Got a couple of OSX machines linked up to the file server with NFS. Occasionally they disconnect. Not such a big deal with my laptop, but my Mac Mini is running Boxee and the whole thing just assplodes when NFS disconnects while Boxee (or Plex) is running. Anything I can do to stop this disconnect thing from happening?

posted by xmutex to technology (6 comments total)

Are you using DHCP and do your leases have a short time on them ?
posted by iamabot at 8:22 PM on July 5

iamabot- I am using DHCP BUT with manual IP addresses, specified by MAC address, so none of the clients in question, nor the server itself, would change IP. I'm not sure of the actual lease time.
posted by xmutex at 8:50 PM on July 5

A couple possibilities here.. either you are losing network connectivity briefly or the server is choking in some way (nfs daemon could be crashing, for example, necessitating a new connection).

Is this over wireless? Does the syslog on your linux machine log anything when this happens? Try leaving ping running so you can see if you are losing network connectivity when it happens. If so, your problem could be anything that would cause network glitches, from a crappy router to microwave interference (if it's wireless), saturation, IP conflict, a failing NIC...
posted by cj_ at 9:02 PM on July 5

Are you wired or wireless? Poor reception could account for it, perhaps.

Have a look in the Console output of the Mini and see if there are any useful messages there; also check /var/log/messages, /var/log/daemon.log on the Ubuntu server.
posted by nonspecialist at 9:04 PM on July 5

On both machines, run "dmesg" (on OSX as root), and if that says nothing obvious, next check the log files in /var/log to see what the problem might be.
posted by cmiller at 6:47 AM on July 6

I remember that NFS on OS X is a pain. Did you set it up using autofs? If so, the clients will disconnect after the share is unused for a while.
posted by PueExMachina at 11:02 PM on July 6