Description of problem:
A NFS Client (RHEL4 U6) attempt to write a file while 
the NFS server (RHEL4.4) server is an available. In that 
case, the NFS client wait retry until major time out expire,
then it should return "server not responding".

(ex)  mount with -o soft,  -o timeo=10, -o retrans=3,
the major time out should expire in 7sec (1+2+4).
On NFS client on RHEL5, it works as expected.
But on RHEL4, the timeout never expire,and 
it never display an error message.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Kernel 2.6.9-67
nfs-utils-1.0.6-84.EL4

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Mount nfs server from NFS Client.
# mount -o soft -o timeo=10 -o retrans=3  nfs_serer:/export/dir  /mnt/nfs

2. Touch a file from NFS client.
   This should work ok. 

3. Stop NFS service on NFS server

4. Touch another file from NFS client.
   # strace -o output_file -t touch /mnt/nfs/abc123

   NFS client never detect timeout

5. Re-start NFS server service, then see the 
   /mnt/nfs directory, and I can find an abc123 file is there.

Actual results:
The NFS Client never timeout even after major timeout.
The NFS Client write a file after the NFS server come 
back to online.

Strace example, 

18:21:38.795910 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, [RTMIN RT_1], NULL, 8) = 0
18:21:38.795985 getrlimit(RLIMIT_STACK, {rlim_cur=10240*1024,
rlim_max=RLIM_INFINITY}) = 0
18:21:38.796143 _sysctl({{CTL_KERN, KERN_VERSION}, 2, 0x7fbffff680, 30, (nil),
0}) = 0
18:21:38.796551 brk(0)                  = 0x509000
18:21:38.796614 brk(0x52a000)           = 0x52a000
18:21:38.796736 open("/mnt5/touch4", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_NOCTTY|O_NONBLOCK, 0666) = 3

I see no error condition here.
(Restart NFS Server at this point of time)

18:27:53.995461 close(3)                = 0
18:27:53.996267 utime("/mnt5/touch4", NULL) = 0 
18:27:54.007194 exit_group(0)           = ?


Expected results:
The NFS Client should display time out after major timeout expire.
The touch command should fail to write to the NFS server, 
if the NFS client encounter major timeout expiration.

Following output is from RHEL5.1.
17:45:39 set_tid_address(0x2aaaaaac7fa0) = 2540
17:45:39 set_robust_list(0x2aaaaaac7fb0, 0x18) = 0
17:45:39 rt_sigaction(SIGRTMIN, {0x3185205350, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_SIGINFO,
0x318520de60}, NULL, 8) = 0
17:45:39 rt_sigaction(SIGRT_1, {0x31852052a0, [],
SA_RESTORER|SA_RESTART|SA_SIGINFO, 0x318520de60}, NULL, 8) = 0
17:45:39 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, [RTMIN RT_1], NULL, 8) = 0
17:45:39 getrlimit(RLIMIT_STACK, {rlim_cur=10240*1024, rlim_max=RLIM_INFINITY}) = 0
17:45:39 brk(0)                         = 0x14efc000
17:45:39 brk(0x14f1d000)                = 0x14f1d000
17:45:39 close(0)                       = 0
17:45:39 open("/mnt5/touch54", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_NOCTTY|O_NONBLOCK, 0666) = -1
EIO (Input/output error)
17:45:42 futimesat(AT_FDCWD, "/mnt5/touch54", NULL) = -1 EIO (Input/output error)
17:45:45 write(2, "touch: ", 7)         = 7
17:45:45 write(2, "cannot touch `/mnt5/touch54\'", 28) = 28
17:45:45 write(2, ": Input/output error", 20) = 20
17:45:45 write(2, "\n", 1)              = 1
17:45:45 close(1)                       = 0
17:45:45 exit_group(1)                  = ?

On RHEL5 NFS client, it display failure message "cannot touch" 
just after 6sec of the command execution.
This is almost same as 7sec major timeout expiration.

Additional info:

On RHEL3 NFS Client, at reast it returned an error message
after 60sec of the command execution.
17:07:09.602576 brk(0)                  = 0x8ba0000
17:07:09.602695 open("/mnt5/cc4",
O_WRONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_CREAT|O_NOCTTY|O_LARGEFILE, 0666) = -1 EIO (Input/output
error)
17:09:05.100872 utime("/mnt5/cc4", NULL) = -1 EIO (Input/output error)
17:10:18.600952 write(2, "touch: ", 7)  = 7
17:10:18.601267 write(2, "creating `/mnt5/cc4\'", 20) = 20
17:10:18.601507 write(2, ": Input/output error", 20) = 20
17:10:18.601761 write(2, "\n", 1)       = 1
17:10:18.602020 exit_group(1)           = ?

It takes a little bit longer to display a "fail". 
but at least the command failed as expected, I think
it is OK.   
On RHEL4 case, it didn't failed. 
This is a problem, AFAICT.