Ext3 users - Jan 2002 - Unstable file systems since upgrading to RedHat 7.2 Ext3

Hi,

We have upgraded our server with RedHat 7.2 and changed the filesystem
for the new Ext3 format. Since then we are having troubles with NFS and
Samba file systems.

Our server export directories to Windows clients through Samba and to
other Linux (RedHat 7.2) through NFS. It is also connected through NFS
to a RedHat 7.0 server.

Since we changed for Ext3 filesystems, we experience to main problems
(everything was working well before) :
  - using NFS directories from a Linux client may freeze the client
  - when some Windows client reboot, the attached Samba process is
    still alive but in an uninterruptible status and the server load
    get quickly very high
In both cases, only a reboot (of the client for NFS or the server for
Samba) may solve the problem. Which meen today at least one reboot every
day...

I am not sure this is due to Ext3 but the few information I found until
now let me think it can be related to it. Does any one here can help us
with this ?

Thanks,

-- 
Olivier Pasco
Telecommunication Engineer

Mr. Pasco-

    I have experienced problems similar to the ones you describe under the
following
circumstances:

    1- I have Hard NFS mounts
    2- I have the ACL patch for kernel 2.4.9 installed from acl.bestbits.at
    3- I am running on a multiprocessor machine
    4- I have quota support compiled into the kernel regardless of whether
        I am actually mounting any local file systems with quota support
enabled.

    I have upgraded to kernel 2.4.16 compiled with the RH7.2 kernel
config file from Redhat- with three notable exceptions:

    1- I turn off the "tux" kernel httpd
    2- I turn on ext2+ext3 extended attributes and acl support
    3- I turn off quota support in the kernel

    I don't know if this will help you at all, as our situations do not
seem to be identical.  There is also a RedHat 7.2 nfs utils  rpm
file out there available for download.  I can't recall if it was
a general bug fix or a security issue, but I've been installing it
on all fresh systems lately before I go into production.  I have ceased
to do hard nfs mounts when a Linux box is part of the picture.

    With these considerations, my stability over the last 40ish days
has improved radically.  I went from 4-5 server crashes a day
in a farm of 25 machines, to absolutely zero since mid-December.

    Hope this helps you some.

Thanks,
    Darrell McGuire

Olivier Pasco wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have upgraded our server with RedHat 7.2 and changed the filesystem
> for the new Ext3 format. Since then we are having troubles with NFS and
> Samba file systems.
>
> Our server export directories to Windows clients through Samba and to
> other Linux (RedHat 7.2) through NFS. It is also connected through NFS
> to a RedHat 7.0 server.
>
> Since we changed for Ext3 filesystems, we experience to main problems
> (everything was working well before) :
>   - using NFS directories from a Linux client may freeze the client
>   - when some Windows client reboot, the attached Samba process is
>     still alive but in an uninterruptible status and the server load
>     get quickly very high
> In both cases, only a reboot (of the client for NFS or the server for
> Samba) may solve the problem. Which meen today at least one reboot every
> day...
>
> I am not sure this is due to Ext3 but the few information I found until
> now let me think it can be related to it. Does any one here can help us
> with this ?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Olivier Pasco
> Telecommunication Engineer
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ext3-users mailing list
> Ext3-users@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ext3-users

Olivier Pasco wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We have upgraded our server with RedHat 7.2 and changed the filesystem
> for the new Ext3 format. Since then we are having troubles with NFS and
> Samba file systems.
> 
> Our server export directories to Windows clients through Samba and to
> other Linux (RedHat 7.2) through NFS. It is also connected through NFS
> to a RedHat 7.0 server.
> 
> Since we changed for Ext3 filesystems, we experience to main problems
> (everything was working well before) :
>   - using NFS directories from a Linux client may freeze the client
>   - when some Windows client reboot, the attached Samba process is
>     still alive but in an uninterruptible status and the server load
>     get quickly very high
> In both cases, only a reboot (of the client for NFS or the server for
> Samba) may solve the problem. Which meen today at least one reboot every
> day...
> 
> I am not sure this is due to Ext3 but the few information I found until
> now let me think it can be related to it. Does any one here can help us
> with this ?

I would suggest to mount all offending filesystems as ext2 (just change 
/etc/fstab accordingly - besides the root fs) and see if the problems go 
away. If not, it isn't ext3 related.

Juri