The dread "Stale NFS file handle"

[Paul Lussier]

"Michael ODonnell" <michael.odonnell at comcast.net> writes:

>  The following explanation is presented from my perspective where
>  I'm trying to regain access to my NFS mounted home directory
>  but should be applicable in other contexts if you tweak the
>  appropriate things:
>
>  ASSUME:
>   - Home directory resides on serverBox:/aaa/bbb/ccc/modonnell
>   - Home directory normally mounted on client system(s) locally
>     as: /h/modonnell
>   - serverBox has suffered some fault leading to the dread
>     "Stale NFS file handle" error, preventing access to my
>     home directory but also preventing unmount/remount ops.
>
>  HACK:
>   - Create new directory on client machine /tmp/staleHack
>   - mount serverBox:/aaa/bbb/ccc/modonnel  /tmp/staleHack
>   - ls -la                                 /tmp/staleHack
>   - ls -la                                 /h/modonnel
>   - umount                                 /tmp/staleHack
>   - rmdir                                  /tmp/staleHack
>
>  Home directory /h/modonnel should once again be accessible.

mod,

Can you explain *why* this works? I think I see it, but I believe this
will only work for stale NFS file handles, i.e. when the server comes
back on-line, but the client system was so wedged, it didn't notice.
This won't solve the problem for when the server has just gone away
and not come back (since, if it's gone, you can't do step 2 above). 

I think, essentially, my solution is a slight adaptation of yours, but
only for when the server hasn't ever come back on line.
-- 

Seeya,
Paul