Strange NFS-related messages (related to lockd/statd)

[Jeremy Chadwick]

I recently brought up rpc.lockd and rpc.statd on all of our NFS clients
(mixed RELENG_6, RELENG_7, and RELENG_8), and our NFS server (RELENG_8).

All clients had nfs_client_enable="yes" in rc.conf prior to their last
reboot, but lacked rpcbind_enable="yes", rpc_lockd_enable="yes", and
rpc_statd_enable="yes" prior to the below.

The 8.x clients started rpcbind, rpc.lockd, rpc.statd -- then said:

NLM: failed to contact remote rpcbind, stat = 0, port = 0
Can't start NLM - unable to contact NSM

The 7.x clients started rpcbind, rpc.lockd, rpc.statd -- then said:

Can't start NLM - unable to contact NSM

One of the 7.x clients also kernel panic'd when starting rpc.lockd,
in some nlm_* kernel functions.  Looking at commits showed that the bug
that caused the panic was fixed in a later 7.x release.

The 7.x clients started rpcbind, rpc.lockd, rpc.statd -- and said
nothing.

The above daemons were all started in that order, per the FreeBSD
Handbook.

I can't find a definition of what the acronyms NLM and NSM stand for,
nor does Googling the error messages return relevant results (except one
FreeBSD committer reporting similar, but nobody replied).  I don't know
the implications of these messages.

The only thing I can think might cause such errors would be the fact
that these machines all have dual NICs with firewall rules applied only
to their primary (WAN-side) interface.  The NFS server exists only on
the private (LAN-side) interface.  I'm thinking rpcbind may have tried
to "do stuff" on the WAN interface, since no -h option was applied.

I haven't tried making use of -h yet, nor have I tried restarting the
daemons to see if the errors recur (or if it was just a one-time thing).

Any information/tips/advice would be appreciated.  Danke!

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |