Bug 39926 - nfs client has trouble reading .Xauthority file
Summary: nfs client has trouble reading .Xauthority file
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: nfs-utils
Version: 7.1
Hardware: i686
OS: Linux
high
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Pete Zaitcev
QA Contact: David Lawrence
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2001-05-09 18:35 UTC by glshank
Modified: 2005-10-31 22:00 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2003-12-05 18:25:01 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
strace of 'wc .Xauthority' (5.46 KB, text/plain)
2001-06-13 17:11 UTC, glshank
no flags Details

Description glshank 2001-05-09 18:35:26 UTC
From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2-2 i686)

Description of problem:
Our users launch netscape from a Linux box running RHL 7.1 and display back
to their X desktop. We use user, not host based authenication. On occasion,
the linux box will not see the .Xauthority file at all. 'ls' will list it
but 'cat', 'wc', 'file', etc. will not be able to read it. Other NFS
clients read it fine.


How reproducible:
Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Login to xdm session on hostA with your home mounted on RHL 7.1 box via
NFS
2. remsh RHL 7.1 box 'xterm -display hostA:0'
3. This will fail if xterm can't read .Xauthority which it sometimes can't
	

Actual Results:  X client reported that it's request to display was refused
by the server

Expected Results:  NFS should work reliably. If it would work, clients
could read the .Xauthority file. As a work-around, I have to use host based
X authenication which is much less secure.

Additional info:

# cat /etc/issue

Red Hat Linux release 7.1 (Seawolf)
Kernel 2.4.2-2 on an i686


: wc .Xauthority
wc: .Xauthority: No such file or directory
      0       0       0 .Xauthority

: ls -l .Xauthority
-rw-------    1 user  group   49 May  9 06:13 .Xauthority

: id
uid=21487(user) gid=24773(group)

: cat .Xauthority
cat: .Xauthority: No such file or directory

: file .Xauthority
.Xauthority: file: read failed (No such file or directory).

: touch .Xauthority
touch: setting times of `.Xauthority': No such file or directory

When I login to any other nfs client (Solaris, DG/UX, RHL 6.2), I can read
the file fine. Here is RedHat 6.2 with the exact same mount
options:

: wc .Xauthority
      1       3      49 .Xauthority

type nfs (rw,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr,bg,addr=aaa.bb.cc.dd)

Other files on that same nfs file system are readable by the 7.1 client.

: wc .Xdefaults
    107     200    3777 .Xdefaults

This has worked since RHL 4.2. The nfs servers haven't changed. They
are still Solaris 2.6 and DG/UX 4.11

Comment 1 Bob Matthews 2001-06-08 14:04:54 UTC
Can you try changing rsize/wsize to 1024?

Comment 2 glshank 2001-06-13 14:13:14 UTC
The change of rsize and wsize to 1024 did not make a difference.


Comment 3 Bob Matthews 2001-06-13 15:16:08 UTC
Hmm..  This is very odd.  Can you provide the following for debugging?

1 - An strace of one of the file ops (cat, file, etc.) which fails with a "No
such file or directory" error msg.

2 - A tcpdump or ethereal capture of the client/server net traffic during one of
these file ops.

Comment 4 glshank 2001-06-13 17:11:18 UTC
Created attachment 21002 [details]
strace of 'wc .Xauthority'

Comment 5 glshank 2001-06-13 17:16:03 UTC
I was able to get the strace while the error was occuring. However, by the
time I got to tcpdump, I was able to read the file ok. So, when the problem
re-surfaces, I'll get the tcpdump info.


Comment 6 Bob Matthews 2001-06-13 17:28:05 UTC
If the problem is intermittent, the NIC driver is also a suspect.  Which network
cards do the troublesome machines have?

Comment 7 glshank 2001-06-13 19:21:19 UTC
Intel Ethernet Pro 100. ifconfig says we are clean:

# ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:A0:C9:EB:C6:F9
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8206805  errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11996612 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          Interrupt:14 Base address:0xdce0 

Here is some more info on the NIC:

kernel: eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker
  http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/eepro100.html
kernel: eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by
  Andrey V. Savochkin <saw.com.sg> and others
kernel: PCI: Assigned IRQ 14 for device 00:08.0
kernel: eth0: Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100],
  00:A0:C9:EB:C6:F9, I/O at 0xdce0, IRQ 14.
kernel:   Receiver lock-up bug exists -- enabling work-around.
kernel:   Board assembly 704666-002, Physical connectors present: RJ45
kernel:   Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.
kernel:   General self-test: passed.
kernel:   Serial sub-system self-test: passed.
kernel:   Internal registers self-test: passed.
kernel:   ROM checksum self-test: passed (0x49caa8d6).
kernel:   Receiver lock-up workaround activated.


Comment 8 glshank 2001-06-14 15:15:59 UTC
The error came back this morning so I got the tcpdump info for various commands.

wc .Xauthority

11:11:20.866703 eth0 > RHL_7.1.756060177 > DG_4.11.nfs: 180 nop (DF) 
11:11:20.866703 eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.756060177: reply ok 240 nop
11:11:20.866703 eth0 > RHL_7.1.772837393 > DG_4.11.nfs: 164 getattr [|nfs] (DF)
11:11:20.866703 eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.772837393: reply ok 28 getattr
ERROR: No such file or directory 
11:11:20.866703 eth0 > RHL_7.1.789614609 > DG_4.11.nfs: 176 read [|nfs] (DF)
11:11:20.876703 eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.789614609: reply ok 32 read ERROR:
No such file or directory

file .Xauthority

11:11:27.516907 eth0 > RHL_7.1.1544589329 > DG_4.11.nfs: 176 read [|nfs] (DF) 
11:11:27.516907 eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.1544589329: reply ok 32 read ERROR:
No such file or directory

cat .Xauthority

11:11:32.387056 eth0 > RHL_7.1.2853212177 > DG_4.11.nfs: 176 read [|nfs] (DF)
11:11:32.387056 eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.2853212177: reply ok 32 read ERROR:
No such file or directory

touch .Xauthority

11:11:59.917900 eth0 > RHL_7.1.3843067921 > DG_4.11.nfs: 192 setattr [|nfs] (DF)
11:11:59.917900 eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.3843067921: reply ok 36 setattr
ERROR: No such file or directory


Comment 9 Bob Matthews 2001-06-19 19:20:32 UTC
A couple more things to try.  

Are you using IPchains or netfilter?  If so, make sure your firewall software on
the Linux side is configured to let fragmented packets through.

Configure the exports file on the server to use NFS version 2.

Comment 10 glshank 2001-06-20 15:22:32 UTC
I'm not using IPchains or netfilter.

I changed /etc/fstab on the 7.1 box to mount as nfs version 2

 nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,nfsvers=2,rw,hard,intr,bg

After remounting, I verified the version by looking in /proc/mounts

I still get the error.


Comment 11 Bob Matthews 2001-06-22 16:46:13 UTC
Well, this really smells to me like a problem with fragmentation.  Can you get
another tcpdump of this problem.  Just a single failed operation will do, but
I'd like to see the entire contents of the packets.  Can you run tcpdump with
-vvv -s 192?  Thanks.

I would also suggest you contact the nfs-utils mailing list and describe your
problem.  The kernel nfsd authors hang out there.  nfs.net

Comment 12 glshank 2001-07-03 15:21:08 UTC
eth0 > RHL_7.1.3482569487 > DG_4.11.nfs: 176 lookup fh 64,181/2  [|nfs] (DF)
(ttl 64, id 0)
eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.3482569487: reply ok 128 lookup fh 64,181/2 REG
100600 ids 24794/24791 sz 740 nlink 1 rdev 0 fsid 40b5 nodeid 23d918 a/m/ctime
994167511.057415 994167459.757462 994167459.869957  (ttl 255, id 50793)
eth0 > RHL_7.1.3499346703 > DG_4.11.nfs: 160 getattr fh 64,181/2 (DF) (ttl 64,
id 0)
eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.3499346703: reply ok 28 getattr ERROR: No such file
or directory (ttl 255, id 50794)
eth0 > RHL_7.1.3516123919 > DG_4.11.nfs: 172 read fh 64,181/2 [|nfs] (DF) (ttl
64, id 0)
eth0 < DG_4.11.nfs > RHL_7.1.3516123919: reply ok 28 read ERROR: No such file or
directory (ttl 255, id 50795)


Comment 13 Bob Matthews 2001-07-05 16:19:33 UTC
Greg,

We may have a solution to this problem.  The kernel's nfs client side code has a
patch as of 2.4.6pre3 which has been reported to fix this same problem with
Linux clients and Irix servers.  

Can you pull down the 2.4.6 kernel and test that on a client?

Comment 14 glshank 2001-07-11 16:42:00 UTC
I'm sorry to report that the new kernel did not fix the problem.
I'm now running 2.4.6pre9. I haven't tried at NFS version 2 yet.
I guess I'll do that but I really would like to run version 3.

Greg


Comment 15 Pete Zaitcev 2003-10-06 21:26:01 UTC
What is the status of this problem now? Does it exist with RHL 9?


Comment 16 Pete Zaitcev 2003-12-05 18:25:01 UTC
Stale - closing with regrets.



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