nfs server issues

Richard Purdie <[email protected]> Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:58:52 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.os.freebsd.devel.file-systems
Message-ID <8657340090e3a4ac441cc7c4e9ea92ff2673927f.camel@linuxfoundation.org>
Hi,

I was hoping someone might be able to give me some pointers on how to
debug an NFS issue we keep running into. I asked on #freebsd and they
suggested I should send an email.

We have a FreeBSD 14.4 NFS server which we connect to with Linux nfs
clients using NFS 4.2. The clients are many different Linux distros
(Alma, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE) of differing versions.

We reboot the clients on Monday, by Friday, the clients start locking
up showing "Remote I/O error" for something like "echo xxx >
/nfs/testfile". Reads work, writes don't and it affects all of them
eventually. Having things break just before or at the weekend is
getting annoying!

I was able to get one of the clients working again by terminating all
the processes using the mount point and then remounting. We can
obviously restart the nfs server but that just buys time until it
happens again eventually.

On the server, nfsd is using 5580% CPU and there appear to be very high
open file (10-15k) and lock (100s) counts. The output from nfsdumpstate
shows that:

Flags         OpenOwner      Open LockOwner      Lock     Deleg  OldDeleg Clientaddr                                    ClientID
CB                    1     14837       208       208         0         0 fd01:172:16::1a                               4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323430342d766b2d31
CB                    1     10945       136       136         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2154                         4c696e7578204e465376342e3220616c6d61382d766b2d31
CB                    1     11006       157       157         0         0 fd01:172:16::14                               4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d35
CB                    1     10330       127       127         0         0 2a01:4f9:3070:2b44::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323230342d766b2d32
CB                    1     14515       205       205         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2162                         4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31312d766b2d33
CB                    1     13184       261       261         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2152                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323531302d766b2d31
CB                    1     14713       264       264         0         0 fd01:172:16:1::11                             4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d32
CB                    1      8275       123       123         0         0 fd01:172:16::18                               4c696e7578204e465376342e3220616c6d61382d766b2d32
CB                    1     14778       165       165         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2158                         4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31312d766b2d31
CB                    1      2525        16        16         0         0 fd01:172:16::16                               4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323230342d766b2d61726d32
CB                    1     13050       163       163         0         0 fd01:172:16::2:18                             4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d38
CB                    1     11290       155       155         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2157                         4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d31
CB                    0         0         0         0         0         0 2a01:4f9:3081:38ea::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e3220706572662d64656269616e31322d766b
CB                    1     15116       191       191         0         0 fd01:172:16::1:26                             4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323430342d766b2d33
CB                    1      9935       181       181         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2150                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32206665646f726134332d766b2d32
CB                    1     14844       183       183         0         0 fd01:172:16::12                               4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d33
CB                    1     22771       356       356         0         0 fd01:172:16::37                               4c696e7578204e465376342e32206f70656e737573653135362d766b2d31
CB                    1         1         0         0         0         0 2a01:4f9:3b:4ec5::2                           4c696e7578204e465376342e3220706572662d616c6d61382d766b
CB                    1     11093       163       163         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2160                         4c696e7578204e465376342e3220616c6d61392d766b2d32
CB                    1     15780       179       179         0         0 fd01:172:16::1:25                             4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323430342d766b2d32
CB                    1     16558       333       333         0         0 fd01:172:16::13                               4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d34
CB                    1      6297        93        93         0         0 2a01:4f9:3090:14cc::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32206665646f726134342d766b2d31
CB                    1     13180       188       188         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2155                         4c696e7578204e465376342e3220726f636b79382d766b2d31
CB                    1     11373       196       196         0         0 fd01:172:16::19                               4c696e7578204e465376342e3220726f636b79392d766b2d32
CB                    1     14881       195       195         0         0 fd01:172:16::2:19                             4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d39
CB                    1      4068        63        63         0         0 fd01:172:16::38                               4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323630342d766b2d61726d31
CB                    1     11171       157       157         0         0 fd01:172:16::1:28                             4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323230342d766b2d34
CB                    1     14374       226       226         0         0 fd01:172:16::15                               4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d36
CB                    1     14584       290       290         0         0 fd01:172:16::1:27                             4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323230342d766b2d33
CB                    1     19905       516       516         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2143                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32206f70656e737573653136302d766b2d312e796f63746f2e696f
CB                    1         0         0         0         0         0 2a01:4f9:3071:1625::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323630342d766b2d31
CB                    1     13805       214       214         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2153                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323530342d766b2d31
CB                    1     11157       125       125         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2165                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323230342d766b2d31
CB                    1      6668       103       103         0         0 fd01:172:16:1::33                             4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31332d766b2d61726d31
CB                    1      8055       105       105         0         0 2a01:4f9:3071:1624::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323630342d766b2d32
CB                    1      2669        23        23         0         0 fd01:172:16::36                               4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323430342d766b2d61726d32
CB                    1     10060       554       554         0         0 fd01:172:16:1::29                             4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31332d766b2d31
CB                    1     11182       532       532         0         0 fd01:172:16:1::242:2159                       4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31332d766b2d32
CB                    1     11565       195       195         0         0 2a01:4f9:3081:33de::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e322073747265616d392d766b31
CB                    1     16998       338       338         0         0 fd01:172:16::242:2161                         4c696e7578204e465376342e32206f70656e737573653136302d766b2d32
CB                    1      3597        36        36         0         0 fd01:172:16::35                               4c696e7578204e465376342e32207562756e7475323430342d766b2d61726d31
CB                    1      7276       188       188         0         0 2a01:4f9:3051:510f::2                         4c696e7578204e465376342e322073747265616d31302d766b2d61726d31
CB                    1     15294       210       210         0         0 fd01:172:16::2:17                             4c696e7578204e465376342e322064656269616e31322d766b2d37
CB                    1      9599       192       192         0         0 fd01:172:16::222:2160                         4c696e7578204e465376342e3220616c6d6131302d766b2d31

The open file and lock counts are odd as there shouldn't be any! I also
noticed some duplicate ClientIDs which I wasn't sure was an issue or
not. One of the zero counts lines is the client I remounted on.

I was hoping I could find out which files were open/locked but I
couldn't work out if there is a way to do that.

Any pointers on how to try and debug the issue further, or what the
issue might be would be welcome.

We'll probably have to just give in and restart the server again but
this will happen again in a week or two based on past experience so I'd
love to have a plan ready for when it does happen again.

Cheers,

Richard
(trying to help fix Yocto Project infrastructure issues)