Bug#568288: mount.nfs: mount(2): Invalid argument

[Luk Claes <luk@debian.org>]

Hi

> Mounting an nfs file system suddenly stopped working with errors
> like this:
> --------------------------------------------------
> # mount.nfs  exact:/ /mnt/exact -v
> mount.nfs: timeout set for Wed Feb  3 16:09:00 2010
> mount.nfs: trying text-based options
'addr=192.168.0.5,vers=4,clientaddr=192.168.0.3'
> mount.nfs: mount(2): Invalid argument
> mount.nfs: an incorrect mount option was specified
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Both systems (that on which the mount was issued and the server)
> were running testing. They were, however using custom kernels, but these
> had worked without problems until today. Only the server was set up for
> nfs version 4 which seems to be the heart of the problem from the message
> about the text based options above - see below as well.

I guess it's an old kernel?

> The problem was resolved by adding either -o nfsvers=2 or
> -o nfsvers-3 to the mount command.
>
> Thus there seems to be some sort of problem negotiating the nfs version
> between the client & server? And a totally misleading error message?

The default changed to version 4, but that does not work with old
kernels, so I guess that's the problem?

That would also explain the error message.

Cheers

Luk