NFS locking: lockf freezes (rpc.lockd problem?)

[Michael Abbott]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006, Greg Byshenk wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 27, 2006 at 11:24:13AM +0000, Michael Abbott wrote:
>> I've been trying to make some sense of the "NFS locking" issue.  I am
>> trying to run
>> 	# make installworld DESTDIR=/mnt
>> where /mnt is an NFS mount on a FreeBSD 4.11 server, but I am unable to
>> get past a call to `lockf`.

> I have just performed a test of what you describe, using 'smbtest'
> (6.1-STABLE #17: Fri Aug 25 12:25:19 CEST 2006) as the client and
> 'data-2' (FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE #16: Wed Aug  9 15:38:12 CEST 2006) as the
> server.
...
> Which is to say that it completed successfully.  Which suggests that there
> is not a serious and ongoing problem.

Hm.  That's a useful data point: thanks for making the test!

What about the non-interruptible sleep?  Is this regarded as par for the 
course with NFS, or as a problem?

I know that "hard" NFS mounts are treated as completely unkillable, though 
why `kill -9` isn't made to work escapes me, but a locking operation which 
(presumably) suffers a protocol error?  Or is rpc.lockd simply waiting to 
hear back from the (presumably broken) NFS server?  Even so: `kill -9` 
ought to work!