I am seeing the same thing on 2 machine here.  Except for me the problem goes
away if I specify each host by name in /etc/hosts.  It does not work for
something like @netgroup or *.wlv.hp.com.

I am totally confused.  I have 6 boxes identically configured.  I see this
problem on 2 of them but the other 4 work fine.  Help!!!!

--John Cavanaugh

Oops that should have been /etc/exports...  --John C

I have the same terrible problem here. It makes RH61 useless and I'm going to
downgrade again to RH52 :-( I really don't understand that bugs in such an
important service as NFS doesn't get the highest priority at RH :-(((

Maybe this small report will help a bit:

My /etc/exports:
/       asterix(rw,no_root_squash)
/       idefix(rw,no_root_squash)
/       obelix(rw,no_root_squash)
/       abraracourcix(rw,no_root_squash)
/       panoramix(rw,no_root_squash)

Entering:
"exportfs -av"
gives:

exporting panoramix:/
exporting abraracourcix:/
exporting obelix:/
exporting idefix:/
exporting asterix:/

So far OK (except that locally mounted directories aren't accessible through
NFS!!!)

adding the line
/home/windows    asterix(rw) abraracourcix(rw) idefix(rw)
to /etc/exports (/home/windows/ is on the same partition as /) gives:

"exportfs -av"
exporting idefix:/home/windows
idefix:/home/windows: Invalid argument
exporting abraracourcix:/home/windows
abraracourcix:/home/windows: Invalid argument
exporting asterix:/home/windows
asterix:/home/windows: Invalid argument
exporting panoramix:/
exporting abraracourcix:/
exporting obelix:/
exporting idefix:/
exporting asterix:/

An /etc/exports with:
/	192.168.100.0/24(rw,no_root_squash)
gives NFS connection on some machines, but others get "Permission denied" while
the station that sees "permission denied" appears in /var/lib/nfs/xtab. When
changing something an "/etc/rc.d/init.d/nfs stop-start" is absolutely necessary.

When a workstation is unmounted, its entry stays in the xtab file. I understood
from the docs that the line should be removed in that case.

The only thing that seems to "work" is mentioning all workstations one by one in
/etc/exports. Two or more mountpoints on for the same workstation is not
possible.

I discovered this bug after a few days, while the kNFSd service was one of the
first services that I installed. If this bug had been present from the beginning
I would certainly have remarked it the first day. During the first few days I
installed all sorts of services on that machine (maybe a file or a lib
overwritten?). Kernels: 2.2.12-20 (original and modified) and 2.2.13, now I
going to compile 2.2.14 that came out yesterdaynight. If that resolves the
problem you'll certainly hear from me. Maybe it would be an idea to make some
RH61-rpm's for the RH52 version of the nfs programs? Please find a solution to
this problem asap, the knfsd isn't even an alpha version (with respect for the
one(s) who work(s) on it of course).

Workstations: RH52 and RH61. All i486/i586/i686. Installed from original release
and upgraded with all rpm's from ftp-server.

Richard Lucassen.

Btw: I have a few files here if somebody is interested:
"strace exportfs -av 1>exports.1 2>exports.2" I have a very 'stable' buggy
version here.

I downloaded "nfs-server-2.2beta47-1.src.rpm" from the update-directory of RH52,
rebuilt it and installed it. Until now (knock, knock on wood) this seems to work
fine. Please mail me if I do something stupid (I'm not a Linux expert).

Richard.

You need to export each mount point separately. Ie if / and /data are on
different partitions, you need to list both / and /data in /etc/exports.

Yes ok, I understand that (it seems that this is the original way of mounting
directories, I heard this morning), and I can live with that. But the problem is
still the same: "Invalid argument" as mentioned above. knfsd doesn't let a
client mount two directories on the exporting server. "Permission denied" is the
answer that the client gets, while there should be no reason for a denial. This
bugreport starts with this "permission denied" story. In that case an "exportfs
-av" on the server gives:
NFS_server:'/exported_dir': Invalid argument

This is really not normal behaviour.

If I enter in /etc/exports:
/    192.168.100.0/24(rw)
some machines in the 192.168.100.* network can mount the exported directory,
some cannot. They get "permission denied", even though the /var/lib/nfs/xtab
indicates that everything is ok.

I admit that I regularly do and say stupid things and I still consider myself as
a newbee but IMHO this is really a bug and not a feature ;-)

Richard.