In message <199803142240.RAA26493@volitans.MorningStar.Com>  Laine Stump wrote:
...
> 
> We've been seeing a similar problem here as well. Occasionally a
> machine will lose sight of an NFS server, and just about everything on
> that machine will become locked, requiring us to whack the reset
> button (not nice on machine used by >10 people). Usually this happens
> for no apparent reason (the server isn't down, is on the same segment
> of ethernet, and isn't at all busy), but it also happens when the
> server does go down; when that happens, any machine that attempts to
> get something from its disk before it comes back up gets hosed.

One more data-point. I tried a NFS mount over a WAN, and the same 
thing happend relieable. EG. I was not able to mount and it did 
hang. Both machines were NetBSD 1.3B.

>From past experience with debuuging such problems  (not on NetBSD) I
think the hang comes from a locked i-node, and every time a lookup 
is done the directory above it becomes locked too. The fun ends when 
we hit root.  I think also from the pattern of that problem that the 
(dead)-lock on the inode happens during a NFS-retransmit.

I can't try again, because I'm now back on the same side of the Atlantic
with the NFS-server.

Stefan

--
Stefan Grefen                                Tandem Computers Europe Inc.
grefen@hprc.tandem.com                       High Performance Research Center
If a group of N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be N-1
passes.  Someone in the group has to be the manager.
                -- T. Cheatham