Bug 463578

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #430141 +++

rpc.mountd leaves confusing messages in the logs when a client not listed in to /etc/exports makes a mount request:
  mount request from unknown host foo.example.com for /export (/export)

To a system administrator, "unknown host" means a name lookup failure from DNS/NIS/LDAP/local-files, which is not the case.

Please change the message to something like
  mount request from unlisted host %s for %s (%s): not in /etc/exports

Alternatively, please provide a more detailed explanation of what the message means in the rpc.mountd(8) man page.




--- Additional comment from jlayton on 2008-01-25 07:31:28 EDT ---

> Maybe "unknown" does NOT mean a DNS lookup failure, but rather, it means the
> host was not listed in /etc/exports, therefore it's unknown.

Correct. mountd has a list of hosts that it knows that it builds from
/etc/exports. If the mount request doesn't match any of those hosts, then you'll
get the "unknown host" message. If the host is "known", but tries to mount an
export to which it doesn't have access, or if the directory just isn't exported,
you'll get the no_entry or not_exported error messages.

Granted, mountd's error messages are a bit cryptic. They probably could do with
some cleanup. I'll have to think about what makes the most sense. We want to
convey *why* the mount request failed in this error message, without confusing
the user. I'm not sure that "unauthorized host" really conveys the fact that the
ip addr doesn't match any host entries in the exports file.

I'll need to ponder this a bit...


--- Additional comment from jlayton on 2008-05-28 08:59:59 EDT ---

...maybe:

mount request from unlisted host %s for %s (%s)