Comments on: NFS disconnects w/ OSX clients?

Question: NFS disconnects w/ OSX clients?

xmutex — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:55:43 -0800

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?

By: iamabot

iamabot — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:22:29 -0800

Are you using DHCP and do your leases have a short time on them ?

By: xmutex

xmutex — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:50:22 -0800

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.

By: cj_

cj_ — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:02:52 -0800

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...

By: nonspecialist

nonspecialist — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:04:30 -0800

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.

By: cmiller

cmiller — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:47:27 -0800

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.

By: PueExMachina

PueExMachina — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:02:43 -0800

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.