Subject: Corruption on files read via NFS
To: NetBSD-current Users <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca>
List: current-users
Date: 01/13/1997 00:20:54
I'm having an odd problem with corruption on files read via NFS.

I have the following machines, all running a Dec. 25th -current kernel
and userland:

Server:   Sparc IPX, 40 MB RAM, serving a 1 GB IBM disk
Client 1: DEC Alpha Multia, 56 MB RAM
Client 2: P100, Asus M/B, 40 MB RAM, NCR SCSI controller and drives (no IDE),
	  3c905 Ethernet
Client 3: 486/40 16 MB RAM, IDE hard drive (Connor 400 MB) (no SCSI),
	  3c509 Etherent
	  wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 14
	  wd0 at wdc0 drive 0: <Conner Peripherals 420MB - CFS420A>
	  wd0: 406MB, 826 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec
	  wd0: using 16-sector 16-bit pio transfers, chs addressing

For some reason client 3 is getting corruption when reading files
via NFS.  The corruption is exactly the same every time; I can do
a cksum on the file ten times in a row and get the same (wrong)
checksum every time. If I look at the file on the server, it's
fine.  In the client, it appears as if a block of the file has been
replaced by binary garbage--a lot of nulls with a few other things
chucked in.

I've also had a few other odd problems with this machine. Under
1.2 after I did the initial parts of the intstall and went to start
untarring tar decided it would give up with abort traps and core
dumps. (I used cpio -H tar to unpack everything.) I occasionally
seem to be getting corruption in other areas, too; my libc blew up
after a `make install' from an NFS-mounted volume, but that was
fixed after I copied libc.so.12.8 over again from the NFS-mounted
volume.

This machine ran 1.1 just fine when I used it before, although at
that time it was a SCSI machine (Adaptec 1542 and Quantum Empire).
I'm wondering if perhaps these problems might not be related in
some way to using IDE on this machine; I rarely run NetBSD on IDE
systems. Any thoughts?

cjs

Curt Sampson    cjs@portal.ca		Info at http://www.portal.ca/
Internet Portal Services, Inc.	
Vancouver, BC   (604) 257-9400		De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.