SEMI-SUMMARY: SunOS V4.1.4 server can't be automounted by Solaris V2.2 and V2.3

From: John Hall (jhall@sqi.com)
Date: Fri Aug 25 1995 - 15:24:37 CDT


Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 12:38:36 -0700
To: sun-managers
Subject: SEMI-SUMMARY: SunOS V4.1.4 server can't be automounted by Solaris V2.2 and V2.3
Cc: sysp, miked@fujitsu.com.au, sunman@criterion.com, steve@pnw.opensys.com,
        Steinar.Haug@runit.sintef.no, cyb@rainbow-16.Corp.Sun.Com

Apologies about the lateness of this status report. Sun has been VERY
slow about responding to this until I raised heck with the local Sun Service
office. The reason this is not a final report is that Sun has not yet
developed a patch, just experimental fix to test. Here is my initial message:

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>We have a SS10/31 server which was running SunOS V4.1.3 (unpatched!) and
>needed to upgrade the hardware to a SS10/51. We also wanted to upgrade the
>SunOS version to a more current one and settled on V4.1.4 (It's just a
>mostly patched V4.1.3_U1 with support for SS5 added right? WRONG!)
>
>After the upgrade, our Solaris V2.2 and V2.3 machines can no longer
>automount any of the filesystems on the V4.1.4 server. SunOS V4.1.x
>machines have no trouble and Solaris V2.4 has no problem, only the V2.2
>and V2.3 machines!
>
>I can manually mount filesystems from the V4.1.4 server on one of the
>V2.2 or V2.3 clients without trouble. Also, /net/<server>/<filesystem>
>works fine!
>
>I just cannot mount via auto.home automounter map. It doesn't matter if
>the map is handled via NIS or is local. The auto_master does point to
>auto.home for "/home". The whole thing worked fine when the server was a
>V4.1.3 machine.

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Thanks to:

miked@fujitsu.com.au (Mike Daffey)
sunman@criterion.com (Aditya Talwar)
steve@pnw.opensys.com (Steve Lee)
Steinar Haug <Steinar.Haug@runit.sintef.no>
cyb@rainbow-16.Corp.Sun.Com (Cynthia Bittner)

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The problem is a fix to a bug (Sun BugID 1139003) which was included in the
libc jumbo patch for SunOS V4.1.3_U1 (100558-02) and incorporated in SunOS
V4.1.4. The fix causes RPCBIND to be silent when an error occurs, or an
invalid request is made, instead of returning an error (this IS the behaviour
outlined in RFC1057 (section 7.4.2)).

Unfortunately, MANY applications have been written which DEPEND on getting
the error indication back. If they do not, then most of them will fail.
Reference Sun BugID's: 1211180, 1213889, 1194410, 1210224, 1181327
Some of the places I have seen this problem are:

1. The problem mentioned above. Solaris V2.1, V2.2, and unpatched V2.3
        cannot automount filesystems from a SunOS V4.1.4 machine. Strangely
        you CAN manually mount the filesystems, it is the automounter itself
        which requires the response to an invalid RPCBIND request.

2. SunOS V2.3 ypbind running in non-broadcast mode apparently cannot
        bind to a SunOS V4.1.4 NIS server.

3. PC-NFS "net use ... /mustshare" switch fails for SunOS V4.1.4 servers.
        The PC tries to ping the lock daemon on the server with a null
        RPCBIND request and gets no response.

4. Intergraph's NFS server for NT cannot mount a filesystems from a
        SunOS V4.1.4 server.

5. Certain versions of SGI's NFS product cannot mount filesystems.

Sun has produced an experimental libc.so for the SunOS V4.1.4 server and sent
it to me. I installed it on the servers and it seems to have fixed the problem.
When Sun officially incorporates this fix into a patch, I'll post a final
summary.

                                                        John Hall

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