slow nfs

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis@awesomeplay.com>]

Hi all,

 I recently started having an issue with my NFS mounts becomming
sickeningly slow.  If I have the "soft" option in my fstab, most
file-modification (say, compiling software) gives me weird timeouts and
I/O errors.  With the "hard" option set, no timeouts/errors, just
extreme slowness.

 I confess to having *no* idea how to debug this.  I see no odd messages
in any logs on either the client or the server (both running Debian -
Sid on the client and Sarge on the server).  I'm using stock kernels
(2.4.20-386 on client, 2.4.18-386 on server), no other funny stuff.

 The changes happened all around when my original machine died
(motherboard), and I had to replace quite a few parts at once, and
upgrade/replace the kernel as well (since the custom one I had at the
time didn't support the new hardware, so I switched to the stock kernel
for convenience).

 If I do the same activities (compiling stuff) on the server itself
(same directories/files), there's no problem.  Only when doing this over
NFS.

 If this isn't some common/easily-solved problem, what would I do to go
about debugging this?  Getting more info out of the kernel/daemons/etc?

 Also, I'm not subscribed to the list (too much traffic - i just search
archives if I need any info, usually), so email in CC would be good. 
^,^

Thanks!
-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis@awesomeplay.com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.