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Date:      Fri, 25 Dec 1998 00:03:06 -0500
From:      Matthew Patton <patton@sysnet.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   NFS loopback mounts
Message-ID:  <l0311070cb2a8c196440e@[192.168.1.10]>

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I didn't see a forum on NFS specifics, so here goes.

Apparently doing something like this is not a good idea under heavy NFS IO
with big files.

[fstab]
>/dev/da0s1e             /export/1       ufs     rw              3       2
>/dev/da0s1f             /export/2       ufs     rw              3       2
>/dev/da1s1a             /export/3       ufs     rw              2       2

>localhost:/export/1/FreeBSD            /usr    nfs     rw      0       0
>localhost:/export/2/FreeBSD/src        /usr/src nfs    rw      0       0
>localhost:/export/3/FreeBSD/ports      /usr/ports nfs  rw      0       0
>localhost:/export/3/home               /home   nfs     rw      0       0

[exports]
>/export/1 -alldirs -maproot=root
>/export/2 -alldirs
>/export/3 -alldirs

I was doing a 'make update' (cvsup) on /usr/src and NFS consistantly went
out to lnuch on fortunes.dat (first file of notable size). Whatever it did,
it took out all NFS exporting which led to hung machines on my little
network.

Doing a 'make update' on another box, which NFS mounts practically
everything off the server (s/localhost/nfsserver) works wonderfully.

So are loopback mounts dangerous? Did I hit some sort of race condition by
double mounting? My idea was that I could sit down on any of my hosts and
expect to see the same FS layout. This also necessitated some /etc/rc edits
to start nfsd VERY early in the process and a staticly compiled portmap
installed in /sbin, etc. I'm beginning to think this was a bad move
afterall and that I should just dedicate the box to NFS and not play fancy
games with mount points.


Now onto a mountd question. I've noticed the different behavior exhibited
by the 3 more popular free unix's. If no host is specified in /etc/exports,
OpenBSD tosses the line, FreeBSD defaults to everyone (with whatever
options provided), and Linux uses everyone but explicitely changes the
mount type to be anonymous (nosuid, nodev etc). I think the Linux guys for
once came up with the best solution. Is there any interest in folding in
the Linux everyone=anonymous behavior?

Linux also lets you specify a raft of options on the server side such that
I don't have to specify (ro,nosuid,nodev) on each and every client. The
Free/OpenBSD syntax seems rather backward/limiting by comparison.

Likewise Free/OpenBSD lack the ability to export filesystems except at
their mount points. Right now I have to export all of /export/2 (above)
with the -alldirs flag instead of something like /export/2/FreeBSD -options.

Again, is there any interest in adding such functionality? Please don't
take this as a knock against the *BSD family. I'm a HUGE proponent of the
platform and run exactly 1 Linux box out of the dozen or more hosts under
my control.

If there is sufficient interest (or maybe even if not) I intend to generate
appropriate diffs at some later point in time.



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