Note: This bug is displayed in read-only format because the product is no longer active in Red Hat Bugzilla.
RHEL Engineering is moving the tracking of its product development work on RHEL 6 through RHEL 9 to Red Hat Jira (issues.redhat.com). If you're a Red Hat customer, please continue to file support cases via the Red Hat customer portal. If you're not, please head to the "RHEL project" in Red Hat Jira and file new tickets here. Individual Bugzilla bugs in the statuses "NEW", "ASSIGNED", and "POST" are being migrated throughout September 2023. Bugs of Red Hat partners with an assigned Engineering Partner Manager (EPM) are migrated in late September as per pre-agreed dates. Bugs against components "kernel", "kernel-rt", and "kpatch" are only migrated if still in "NEW" or "ASSIGNED". If you cannot log in to RH Jira, please consult article #7032570. That failing, please send an e-mail to the RH Jira admins at rh-issues@redhat.com to troubleshoot your issue as a user management inquiry. The email creates a ServiceNow ticket with Red Hat. Individual Bugzilla bugs that are migrated will be moved to status "CLOSED", resolution "MIGRATED", and set with "MigratedToJIRA" in "Keywords". The link to the successor Jira issue will be found under "Links", have a little "two-footprint" icon next to it, and direct you to the "RHEL project" in Red Hat Jira (issue links are of type "https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHEL-XXXX", where "X" is a digit). This same link will be available in a blue banner at the top of the page informing you that that bug has been migrated.

Bug 1204702

Summary: Access to nfs4 krb5 files extremely slow
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Reporter: Robbert Eggermont <R.Eggermont>
Component: nfs-utilsAssignee: Steve Dickson <steved>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Yongcheng Yang <yoyang>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 6.6CC: eguan, R.Eggermont, xzhou, yoyang
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-12-06 11:39:03 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Robbert Eggermont 2015-03-23 12:02:51 UTC
Description of problem:
Since nfs-utils-1.2.3-54.el6.x86_64, some file accesses to kerborized nfs4 files are extremely slow. Downgrading to nfs-utils-1.2.3-39.el6_5.3.x86_64 makes file accesses "fast" again. The problem also exists in RHEL7.

For years I've been running a script from cron that obtains an Kerberos ticket (using a keytab) and reads some files on an nfs4 krb5 mount. This used to take ~2s per file, but since nfs-utils-1.2.3-54 it takes ~20s per file. Strangely, the problem doesn't occur when I run the cron job interactively, or when I'm logged in when the cron job runs.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
nfs-utils-1.2.3-54.el6.x86_64 and later

How reproducible:
Always (i.e. running .54 is always slow, running .39 is always fast)

Steps to Reproduce:
I haven't been able to find a simplified way to reproduce the problem.

Actual results:
Reading a file takes 20 seconds.

Expected results:
Reading a file takes 2 seconds.

Additional info:
I can run whatever tests you want me to run (at the client side, I don't control the servers) to find the problem.

Comment 2 Steve Dickson 2015-03-23 14:41:50 UTC
Assuming this is a rpc.gssd problem here are the changes since -39

gssd: Error out when rpc_pipefs directory is empty (bz 1116698)
    nfs-utils-1.2.3-gssd-pipfs-errors.patch
gssd: Drop full domain when constructing the Ad hostname (bz 1067423)
    nfs-utils-1.2.3-gssd-adhostname.patch
gssd: Added GSS_contest lifetime to the kernel (bz 1081208)
    nfs-utils-1.2.3-gssd-lifetime.patch
gssd: always reply to rpc-pipe requests from kernel (bz 1070927)
    nfs-utils-1.2.3-gssd-alwaysreturn.patch
gssd: Call authgss_free_private_data() if library provides it. (bz 1081198)
    nfs-utils-1.2.3-gssd-freeprivatedata.patch

I'm thinking the only patches that may be causing this slow down
are bz1081208 (grabbing a time out for to pass to the kernel) or
bz1070927 (always return something to the kernel). But again 
this is assuming the problem is with rpc.gssd.

Is there anyway to tell if its the mount taking so long or
is it the actual read taking so long?

Comment 3 Robbert Eggermont 2015-03-23 16:28:41 UTC
I had another look. The script basically does:

[ -f "$file" -a !-e "${file}.new ] || continue
while read line
  <some processing>
  echo "$line"
done < "$file" > "${file}.new"

The files contain ~8k lines (<1MB). Stat and read seem fine, the problem seems to be in writing. When I redirect the output to a local file, and afterwards move the file to the share, the time needed is about normal.

(I know this script leaves a lot to be desired, but it has served me fine for many years.;-))

Comment 4 Robbert Eggermont 2015-08-12 09:13:40 UTC
I recently upgraded to RHEL6.7, now the above script runs slow both with the current nfs-utils-1.2.3-64.el6 and with the previously "fast" nfs-utils-1.2.3-39.el6.x86_64. RHEL7.1 is still affected too.

When I obtain a Kerberos ticket with a longer lifetime (60 minutes instead of 5 minutes), the problem disappears (on both RHEL6.7 and RHEL7.1). 

(This makes me wonder what other influences ticket lifetime has on processes?!..)

Comment 5 Steve Dickson 2016-08-24 19:27:05 UTC
I'm just not seeing this slowness... 

nfs-utils-1.2.3-70
Starting 1 thread(s), each writing a 1G file (bufsz: 8192 #bufs: 131072)
thr0: wrote: 1073741824 (1G) bytes @ 24.038 secs is 42.60MBps (340.79Mbps)

nfs-utils-1.2.3-54
Starting 1 thread(s), each writing a 1G file (bufsz: 8192 #bufs: 131072)
thr0: wrote: 1073741824 (1G) bytes @ 24.890 secs is 41.14MBps (329.13Mbps)

nfs-utils-1.2.3-34
Starting 1 thread(s), each writing a 1G file (bufsz: 8192 #bufs: 131072)
thr0: wrote: 1073741824 (1G) bytes @ 25.138 secs is 40.74MBps (325.88Mbps)

Comment 6 Robbert Eggermont 2016-08-25 14:34:39 UTC
I think the problem was more in longer delays in file handling (stat/open/lock/?) than in raw throughput. Since I no longer have a machine with the old, "fast" configuration I can't compare anymore.

Comment 8 Jan Kurik 2017-12-06 11:39:03 UTC
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is in the Production 3 Phase. During the Production 3 Phase, Critical impact Security Advisories (RHSAs) and selected Urgent Priority Bug Fix Advisories (RHBAs) may be released as they become available.

The official life cycle policy can be reviewed here:

http://redhat.com/rhel/lifecycle

This issue does not meet the inclusion criteria for the Production 3 Phase and will be marked as CLOSED/WONTFIX. If this remains a critical requirement, please contact Red Hat Customer Support to request a re-evaluation of the issue, citing a clear business justification. Note that a strong business justification will be required for re-evaluation. Red Hat Customer Support can be contacted via the Red Hat Customer Portal at the following URL:

https://access.redhat.com/