Bug 37031 - Seawolf can't nfs export vfat partition
Summary: Seawolf can't nfs export vfat partition
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: kernel
Version: 7.1
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Arjan van de Ven
QA Contact: Brock Organ
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2001-04-22 04:47 UTC by Jay Berkenbilt
Modified: 2007-04-18 16:32 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2001-04-23 15:21:18 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Jay Berkenbilt 2001-04-22 04:47:27 UTC
/dark is a vfat partition mounted with

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /dark

exportfs host:/dark

results in

host:/dark: Invalid argument

thus making it impossible to nfs-mount a vfat partition from a Seawolf
machine.

I nfs-mount vfat partitions all the time as this is how I back up the
Windows partitions on my machines (which ordinarily run Linux).  I think
this worked in Fisher and Wolverine, but I can't be entirely sure because
all my wolverine machines are now running seawolf.  I know it worked under
6.2.

Note that exports on my ext2 partitions work fine, so this is not a general
exporting problem.  It is specifically that my vfat partitions can't be
exported.  strace shows nfsservctl returns -1 with errno = EINVAL.  I
haven't dug deeper than that.

Comment 1 Arjan van de Ven 2001-04-22 08:52:03 UTC
NFS exporting of VFAT cannot work, as VFAT doesn't match the requirements
NFS sets on a filesystem. Older 2.2 kernels didn't prohibit this and even
tried to fake some of the required semantics, causing all sorts of problems
when people tried to mount this from non-linux machines.

Comment 2 Arjan van de Ven 2001-04-22 09:12:36 UTC
Alternatives for NFS in this case are using RSYNC or the CODA filesystem:
http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/

Comment 3 Jay Berkenbilt 2001-04-23 15:21:13 UTC
These explanations are most helpful.  This explains some of what I saw when I
was looking in the kernel nfs server code.  I guess those checks weren't there
before.

In my case, I'm using home-written backup software.  This just gives me the push
I've needed to add real remote support (a few lines of code the way it's
structured -- I'll just run through ssh).

Thanks for explaining the reasons for this change in behavior, which seems to be
the right thing.

Comment 4 Arjan van de Ven 2001-04-26 11:46:47 UTC
I'll close this as "NOTABUG" then. Feel free to reopen if you object to that.


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