NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Troubleshooting NFS Services

Common Problems with NFS

Chapter 8 299

If You Receive a “Stale File Handle” Message

A “stale file handle” occurs when one client removes an NFS-mounted file

or directory that another client has open, as in the following sequence of

events:

If a server stops exporting a directory that a client has mounted, the

client will receive a stale file handle error. Stale file handles also occur if

you restore the NFS server’s file systems from a backup or randomize the

inode numbers with fsirand(1M).

❏ If the stale file handle occurred because someone removed a file or

directory that was in use, or because a server stopped exporting a

directory that was in use, follow these steps:

1. Issue the /usr/bin/cd command to move out of the

NFS-mounted directory that is causing the problem, then try

unmounting the directory:

/usr/bin/cd ..

/usr/sbin/umount directory

2. If the directory cannot be unmounted because it is busy (in use),

issue the following commands to kill the processes using the

directory and to try again to unmount it:

/usr/sbin/fuser -ck local_mount_point

/usr/sbin/umount local_mount_point

3. If the directory still cannot be unmounted, reboot the client.

4. To avoid stale file handles caused by users deleting

NFS-mounted files, try using a source code control system, like

Revision Control System (RCS). A source code control system

Table 8-1

NFS client 1 NFS client 2

% cd /proj1/source

% cd /proj1

% rm -Rf source

% ls

.:Stale File Handle