Re: NFS Reliability compared to FreeBSD?

[Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>]

> Hi,
> 
> After having loads of problems with NFS on FreeBSD (with *BSD/Linux
> clients), I've decided to have a bash at OpenBSD.  Does OpenBSD share the
> same NFS code as FreeBSD or is it separate and how does it compare
> technically and on the reliability scale?
> 
> It is basic low usage /home directory serving and some exported
> applications on x86 hardware.  There are about 6 clients which are pretty
> dead most of the time.
> 
> If this is in the wrong list - kick me :)

The code isn't shared (although it has the same roots).

I have two setups with OpenBSD boxes sharing /home from a FreeBSD 
box.  One of the setups uses OpenBSD-2.6 & FreeBSD-current and works 
flawlessly.  The other setup uses OpenBSD-current and 
FreeBSD-4.0-RELEASE'ish and now works.  But, two things I experienced:

1.  FreeBSD-3.0-RELEASE was horribly unstable WRT NFS.  Don't even 
    think about it...  3.1 was much better.  3.4 is better still.
2.  I had some hardware problems with my OpenBSD-current box.  It ran 
    fine under light load, but had some dodgy memory/cache.  This was 
    evident from the SIGSEGV/SIGBUSs that came from gcc, but most 
    notibly, NFS sucked !  It was just horribly unstable and seemed 
    to hang the OpenBSD box (client) all the time.  As this was the 
    only OpenBSD box on that network, I didn't know if it was some 
    funny OpenBSD/FreeBSD interaction (Solaris/FreeBSD and FreeBSD/
    FreeBSD worked ok).  When the motherboard was replaced, 
    everything got better.

So, given that you're running reasonably recent versions of 
    {Open,Free}BSD, things should really be fine IMHO.

> Thanks
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Chris Smith              IS Dept - Raytheon Systems Limited
> [chris.smith@raytheon.co.uk]               +44 1279 407 103
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> MicroSoft is not the answer, MicroSoft is the question, the
> answer is no.                                     - unknown
> ===========================================================

-- 
Brian <brian@Awfulhak.org>                        <brian@[uk.]FreeBSD.org>
      <http://www.Awfulhak.org>                   <brian@[uk.]OpenBSD.org>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour !