Category: NFS

When listing a directory on an NFS share, directory listing fails half way through with ‘ls: reading directory .: Too many levels of symbolic links

Disable the dir_index filesystem feature on the filesystem that is being exported from the NFS server.

root# tune2fs -O ^dir_index /dev/sdXY, where sdXY is your device.

To re-enable the dir_index feature use the command:

root# tune2fs -O dir_index /dev/sdXY, where sdXY is your device.

Find out NFS clients connected to my NFS server

root# cat /var/lib/nfs/rmtab

From the rpc.mountd(8) man page:

The rmtab File
The rpc.mountd daemon registers every successful MNT request by adding
an entry to the /var/lib/nfs/rmtab file. When receivng a UMNT request
from an NFS client, rpc.mountd simply removes the matching entry from
/var/lib/nfs/rmtab, as long as the access control list for that export
allows that sender to access the export.

Clients can discover the list of file systems an NFS server is cur-
rently exporting, or the list of other clients that have mounted its
exports, by using the showmount(8) command. showmount(8) uses other
procedures in the NFS MOUNT protocol to report information about the
server’s exported file systems.

Note, however, that there is little to guarantee that the contents of
/var/lib/nfs/rmtab are accurate. A client may continue accessing an
export even after invoking UMNT. If the client reboots without sending
a UMNT request, stale entries remain for that client in
/var/lib/nfs/rmtab.