> knowing NFS in general far better than *BSD in specific, I would guess the best
> thing to do (if you suspect server/client communication anomaly) is to grab a
> snoop/tcpdump of the failure.  I'm trying to think of a clever way to cause the
> failure immediately, so you're not tracing 4GB of writes... mebbe dd's
> seek/skip?  or just append to the existing 4GB file.
> 
> also, what command are you using on the bsd's to write the 4GB file?  I've

lmdd or dd...


> definitely seen issues with VLF-capable OS's failing to write past 2/4GB due to
> VLF-incapable utilities.  (on a related note, is there a need for
> vlfread()/vlfwrite() in the BSD's, or is VLF support native in the read/write
> calls?  

An update on this....

If the server is Solaris, neither NetBSD nor FreeBSD (i386 or alpha) have a
problem (as clients). 

The problem is therefore in some interaction between this server (see
http://www.traakan.com- sorta like a NetApp) and *BSD. Hmm!!!