Experimental NFS server oddity

[Rick Macklem]

> On Sep 11, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Rick Macklem wrote:
> 
> >> I just tried adding
> >>
> >> nfsv4_server_enable="YES"
> >>
> >> to my rc.conf and found that after I rebooted the server, my
> >> FreeBSD 8
> >> client (still using NFSv3) couldn't connect because there was no
> >> RPC
> >> mapping for nfs.
> 
> > Did you specify both of these in rc.conf?
> > nfs_server_enable="YES"
> > nfsv4_server_enable="YES"
> >
> > You need to specify both of them (and nfsuserd="YES" if you going to
> > use
> > NFSv4). See "man nfsv4" for more.
> 
> Both specified, as well as
> rpcbind_enable="YES"
> 
> > If you did specify both, then do a "ps axHl" to see what didn't
> > start up.
> 
> rpcbind, mountd, and nfsuserd are all running, but nfsd is not
> running.
> 
> > You can also look in /var/log/messages to see if any of the daemons
> > are complaining about something.
> 
> Only warning I see on a system reboot is:
> nfsd: can't open /var/db/nfs-stablerestart
> 
> Creating this file and then rebooting the system seems to get things
> working.
> 
> This file certainly wasn't required by the old nfsd.
> Should this file be created by /etc/rc.d/nfsserver at boot time (if it
> doesn't exist)?
> Or should it be created by installworld?
> 
Technically, it should only be created for a fresh install on a disk
that has never been set up before. (ie. Not on an update/upgrade
unless it has never existed before.)

If this file is lost during a crash, the technically correct thing is
to recover it from backups and not let the server start until it is
recovered, since the information in it is critical to a correct reboot
recovery of the NFSv4 state.

So the answer is "no" for /etc/rc.d/nfsserver unless you don't care
about correct server crash recovery.

I don't know if installworld can differentiate between a fresh install
and an upgrade? (I suppose it could create it if it doesn't already
exist.)

As such, I just documented it in "man nfsv4" for now, rick