> 
> On Sun, 7 Apr 1996 10:45:34 -0400 (EDT) 
>  David Gilbert <dgilbert@jaywon.pci.on.ca> wrote:
> 
>  > 	I have found that if I get a process stuck in 'D', then I can
>  > produce more such processes by attempting to read the directory in
>  > which that process is attempting to read files.  I have been able to
>  > duplicate this where I had compiles running which I could definately
>  > track down.
> 
> Smells like a vnode locking problem, maybe?  That could cause the hangs 
> (not really hangs, but enough like one to call it that) people have 
> observed at reboot (after the "syncing disks...").
> 
>  > 	Interestingly, nfsd processes will also get stuck in this
>  > manner.  I don't know if this is interesting, or not.
> 
> Hmm, though, I could swear this came up before NFSv3 went in, but I could 
> be wrong...
> 
We have had a couple of very similar problems. On a rather loaded
mailserver (> 8000 mail/day) here running NetBSD/sparc, sendmail 
sometimes get hanging waiting on lockf, and is unable to send some
mail. (It is the outgoing mailqueue) It is on a NFS-exported
mailpartition, and the problem came up when NFSv3 were imported into
the tree. Our solution was to compile a sendmail that uses dot-locking
instead of lockf.

-- Ragge