NFS fails on boot-up, works fine from command line [Solved]

[Bobnoxous]

Hello. I'm having trouble getting NFS to start at bootup. The message I see via dmesg that I think is related is:

portmap: server localhost not responding, timed out
RPS: failed to contact portmap (errorno -5).

I can start NFS fine manually.
> /etc/init.d/nfs start

Any ideas on why it fails on boot-up? I've seen several NFS issues posted, but I haven't seen one where it works fine from the command line. One suggested to add portmap at startup
> rc-update add portmap default

Which I did, and portmap starts fine, but NFS still does not.
_________________
"The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves while wiser people are so full of doubt."
- Bertrand Russell

[SnarlCat]

Let me begin by saying I'm away from my gentoo box, and I'm not totally familiar with how gentoo loads up the NFS stuff, but the general process for getting an NFS server up is:

• Start portmapper
  
• Start rpc.mountd
  
• Start rpc.nfsd
  
• Start rpc.statd
  
• Start rpc.lockd
  
• Start rpc.quotad (optional)

So given this list, be sure NFS depends on portmap being up, and be sure your hosts/networks are permitted in the /etc/hosts.{allow,deny} files.

Check connectivity and availability using the 'rpcinfo' tool..

Check out the NFS HOWTO [http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NFS-HOWTO/] guide -- some will be done for you by gentoo and the gentoo install, but the testing/debugging/configuration stuff will be of use, I think..

Check dmesg and the logs for useful information for diagnosing this..

Hope this helps..
_________________
--

Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
Thy programs run, thy syscalls
done, In kernel as it is in user!

[Bobnoxous]

Thanks for the guide Snarlcat.

It seems that now I need to create a hosts.allow file. Previously, I did not have hosts.allow or hosts.deny. According to the manual, it should defalt to allowing access. But this seems to have stopped working. I've created a hosts.allow file with the following, and it starts fine at boot-up.

portmap: 192.168.1.200, 192.168.1.203
mountd: 192.168.1.200, 192.168.1.203
statd: 192.168.1.200, 192.168.1.203

I don't quite get it (yet), but it works.
_________________
"The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves while wiser people are so full of doubt."
- Bertrand Russell