NFS: Network disconnect causes Gnome Nautilus to hang / Jumping progress bars

Question

I mount NFSv4 export via /etc/fstab and mount and use the shared folder in nautilus.

There are two issues:

• When I copy a large file (around 4 GB) to the NFS server, the progress bar rapidly goes to 2 GB and then basically stops moving. But the copy s still in progress - it is just not displayed well
• When I disconnect from the network without unmounting the nfs share, nautilus freezes.

How can I work around that?

/etc/export on the server

/export/share   192.168.0.0/24(rw,sync,insecure,no_subtree_check,anonuid=1000,anongid=1000)

/etc/fstab on the client:

server:/share   /mnt    nfs4    soft,tcp

Answer 1

I also have the first problem reported, but no answer for it. The copy also tends to lock up other parts of the system (perhaps due to Nautilus' ubiquity as a GNOME service) while the copy goes on.

On the second point, I found this SO question very useful: https://stackoverflow.com/q/40317/91808. In particular the umount -f /mnt/nfs suggestion worked for me when nothing else did, saving me from an irritating reboot.

Answer 2

I would use automount. It mounts/unmounts the share automatically when it is accessed/not accessed. I don't think it will affect the progress bar problem but it should fix the freezes.

Have a look at my answer here (specifically, steps 5-7) for more information on how to set it up.

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UPDATE

I found that the file manager will hang if the shared volumes are linked to (or directly mounted) in my home directory. By placing links to my mountpoints in a sub directory of $HOME I had no more freezes.

The problem is that autofs will mount the share each time it is accessed, that includes ls. So, every time you open nautilus and you have the mount linked to or mounted in your $HOME, it tries to mount it and hangs.

So, my current (hang-free) settings are:

1. NFS share mounted at /mnt/shared/movies

2. It is linked to in a sub directory of my $HOME:

   $ ls $HOME | grep shared
   shared
   $ ls -l $HOME/shared
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 terdon terdon 20 Feb 15  2012 movies -> /mnt/shared/movies
   

This way, the volume will only be mounted if I do an ls $HOME/shared and not a simple ls $HOME.

Finally, make sure you are using the -soft option.