[10] in linux-net channel archive
Re: old mount ??? bug in nfs ???? bug in new kernel ????? FEATURE ????
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Swen Thuemmler)
Tue Dec 20 05:10:51 1994
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 10:00:54 +0100 (MET)
From: Swen Thuemmler <swen@uni-paderborn.de>
To: Linus Torvalds <Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi>
Cc: Linux Activists <linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi>,
Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>,
Linux Net <linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199412200831.KAA05747@keos.Helsinki.FI>
X-Mn-Key: NET
On Tue, 20 Dec 1994, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> The reason this won't go in is that I don't consider it a bug in the
> kernel at all: I consider it a problem of the mount binary and/or the
> NFS protocol. The current kernel does the right thing: it accepts nfs
> packets only from the host we mounted, and these patches essentially
> make it accept them from any machine.
>
> Of course, the current behaviour means that you have to give the kernel
> the right address for the NFS server: this can be done either with
>
> - the user knows it (our Sun's at the university, for example, use
> this: the mounting of the disks on "hydra" is done through the fddi
> interface, and you actually use "hydra-fddi" to mount them)
In our environment, this is sometimes not possible, since the route to a
host may sometimes change (due to network problems or maintenance or
something else). And we have logical names for some of our machines
(soft-serv, local-master, src-serv etc.) Clients should use this logical
name. This eases administration: No configuration change on ~400 Machines
just because we moved a harddisk around or removed or added a network
interface.
> - 'mount' finding out some way: this could be a question of the mount
> binary faking a NFS request to the machine, and checking what address
> it comes back with and then using that address..
This may be the way to go (but: what if due to high load some packets
come over different routes?)
> I don't consider it a good idea to "solve" the problem by just accepting
> NFS replies from any address..
But isn't this "standard" behaviour in Unix (SunOS, Solaris, IRIX)?
Greetings, Swen
