[Ltsp-discuss] nfs hangs on pivot_root

[Eilert]

Hi all,

This is a problem I read about a lot in the forums but nobody seems to 
have found a solution yet. I could limit the problem to a few items and 
now I am looking for an idea how to compensate it.

I have a mixture of a 10 MBit and 100 MBit network here, some clients 
being connected to 10 MBit Hubs and four of them connected to a 100 MBit 
Hub. These Hubs are all connected with a switch that makes the line to 
the server.

I set up a server on an ASUS board with an onboard gigabit Intel 
controller, the module loaded for it is e1000. It adjusts to 100 MBit 
fullduplex on the switch if you do not give it any options.

Now the problem is that with such a configuration, all the terminals 
that have 10 MBit connections will get a DHCP answer, load up their 
kernels and then hang when it comes to "pivot_root". After a while they 
will note they are "still looking for a server".

The four clients connected to the 100 MBit Hub will go through without 
any problems.

I tried to adjust some settings on the server's gigabit network adapter 
and found that with setting it to 10 MBit halfduplex all clients will 
connect as desired.

Of course, this is just ok for testing, not for a real working state.

Before setting up this server I tried everything with an old machine 
having a cheap 100 MBit fullduplex Realtek card. Here everything just 
worked fine, never had a problem with it.

So what I found out in searching through the forums was that this might 
be a problem of false packets or falsely expected packets in the 
communication between nfs and the network card module. It might be a 
problem of the switch as well, as this might be a switching hub rather 
than a real switch.

Yes, I could disable the onboard controller and use this Realtek card, 
but it wouldn't satisfy completely as the Intel controller is way better 
for the server than the cheap one as far as I know.

Isn't there anyone who could find a solution to tweak the communication 
between nfs and the network so it runs fine? After all, this is Linux...

Thx for all ideas!

Rolf



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