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Getting stale NFS file handle errors after cluster fail over

This document (3714483) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
 

Situation

High Availability Release 2 Cluster

Error: "Cannot open: Stale NFS file handle"
An NFS resource in a High Availability (HA) cluster fails after it has been migrated to another node

m20:~ # crm_mon -1
============
Last updated: Thu Sep 21 13:04:03 2006
Current DC: m20 (f56c650f-1047-453c-907c-859e9c6cb598)
2 Nodes configured.
3 Resources configured.
============

Node: m20 (f56c650f-1047-453c-907c-859e9c6cb598): online
Node: m12 (323e7b1b-1545-4e26-a9a5-5f8e65871752): online

Resource Group: NFS
m55_ip (heartbeat::ocf:IPaddr): Started m20
nfsvg_lvm (heartbeat::ocf:LVM): Started m20
nfs_share_fs (heartbeat::ocf:Filesystem): Started m20
nfsserver (lsb:nfsserver): Started m20

 

Resolution

Export the directories with the fsid tag to specify a specific file system identification number. On each node that will host the NFSresource, modify the /etc/exports file, and add the fsid option to each export. For example, change from this:

/exports/data *(rw,root_squash,sync)

to this:

/exports/data *(rw,root_squash,sync,fsid=25)

The /etc/exports file should be the same on each node hosting the NFS resource.

Additional Information

The device major/minor numbers are embedded in the NFS file handle. This creates a problem when an NFS export is failed over or moved to another node in a cluster scenario. The major/minor numbers change when the resource is exported on the new node. This causes the client to see a "Stale NFS file handle" error. We need to make sure the embedded number stays the same. The fsid export option allows us to specify a number instead of using the major/minor numbers in the file handle.

WARNING: You need to make sure the fsid number is unique across all exported file systems.

For additional information, see:
http://linux-ha.org/HaNFS
exports(5)

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.

  • Document ID:3714483
  • Creation Date: 21-Sep-2006
  • Modified Date:10-Mar-2021
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

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