Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 3313
Kernel NFS client errors (can't silly-delete host/.nfs.etc
Last modified: 2008-08-01 12:22:51 EDT
I'm running a SPARC as an NFS client (with amd) to a Solaris/SunOS 5.6 system. I periodically get messages via syslog of: Jun 7 12:39:27 sloe kernel: NFS: can't silly-delete sloe.open.ac.uk/.nfs00016dcb00000004, error=-13 I'm running kernel-2.2.5-22. The files mentioned are always (AFAIK) under ~/.xauth.
This issue has been forwarded to a developer for further action.
Those are debugging messages.
But the files mentioned in the messages do get left around as well... It's then necessary to remove them manually. The files contain either one, two or three bytes of 0x00 characters...
Assigned to davem
error -13 is permission denied I believe the issue is that the temporary file is created when the X session is beginning and the startup of X has root privileges, the file is deleted but the process which removes the final reference in the end has non-root privileges, and this is what scuffs up the NFS client code. This is just a guess, but knowing the permissions and ownership of the file in question would be a big help to further diagnose this.
Here are the permissions of the .xauth directories: # ls -laR /root/.xauth/ /root/.xauth: total 2 drwx------ 2 root ifef 1024 Aug 16 17:07 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 Aug 16 17:10 .. $ ls -laR .xauth/ .xauth: total 3 drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 . drwxr-xr-x 5 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:08 .. drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 refcount .xauth/refcount: total 3 drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 . drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 .. drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 root .xauth/refcount/root: total 3 drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 . drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 .. drwx------ 2 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:10 dhcp-tech-254.open.ac.uk .xauth/refcount/root/dhcp-tech-254.open.ac.uk: total 6 drwx------ 2 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:10 . drwx------ 3 iac2 ifef 512 Aug 16 17:05 .. -rw------- 1 iac2 ifef 2 Aug 16 17:05 .nfs0001a2bf00000003 -rw------- 1 iac2 ifef 2 Aug 16 17:06 .nfs0001a2c200000004 -rw------- 1 iac2 ifef 2 Aug 16 17:07 .nfs0001a2c300000005 -rw------- 1 iac2 ifef 2 Aug 16 17:08 .nfs0001a2c400000006 My machine is now set up as follows: A single NFS mount to a Solaris 2.6 box for my home directory NIS (no local accounts) I have found a way to reproduce this problem. If I log in as myself, then 'su' to root, then exit back to my own login, /var/log/messages will indicate the can't silly-delete .nfs... right after I end the 'su' session. You mention permissions problems, which makes me wonder if it's a problem with root's UID trying to delete a file in my home directory. This is not possible since my home directory is NFS mounted, but would be possible on local disks. Either that or my UID is attempting to delete files under /root/.xauth. Hope this is useful.