From: rpa@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Richard P Almeida)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: NFS locking with BSD and System V
Date: 11 Sep 92 10:42:19 GMT
Organization: ICL Bracknell, UK

In article <1549@tetra.co.uk> dave@tetra.co.uk (David Sussman) writes:
> I am having problems concerning locking and nfs. 

Initially when ICL issued NFS for DRS 6000, NFS file locking was not
supported because internally we knew that the code supplied with SVR4
source from ATT was unreliable. Before I worked on the DRS 6000, the
code had been tidied up and ICL started to support NFS file locking.
However, we discovered that some of our customers were having problems
with NFS file locking, and we have now completed a major rework of the
code supplied by ATT (USL) with SVR4 in order to support our customers.
The rework consisted of virtually rewriting the NFS lockd, and changing
areas of the kernel assosciated with locking.

We tested this thoroughly by setting up a network with about 40 PC's running
PC-NFS, and many Unix servers, checking functionality, stress loading,
memory leakage etc etc.
We had serious problems with other manafacturer's NFS lockd programs
failing/core-dumping when we ran my tests on their platforms or against
their platforms.

- I'll sumarise here which versions of SVR4 ICL supports NFS file locking
and which need back-fitted patches applied.
I understand that you have also raised a support call with ICL, so I'm sure
that you'll get most of this information twice.

On DRS 6000 (the sparc SVR4 range)
 If you have V4L6 base, then NFS file locking is not supported on your system.
 If you have V5   base, then NFS file locking is supported, except that
	you will require a 'patch' (known as a fix-on-fail) in order to
	benefit from the large amount of work done on the product.
 If you have V6 base, the NFS file locking is supported, and a further patch
        is available to improve performance when 2 seperate machines are
	contesting a lock on a different server.

 As I believe, you have V4L6 base, I strongly suggest upgrading to V6 base,
 the TCP/IP has some major performance enhancements with V6 base and there
 are many extra features present.

On DRS 3000 (the i486 SVR4 range)
 NFS file locking is not supported until V5L2 base and V2L2 TCP/IP, however
 a patch must be applied to this in order to benefit from the large amount
 of work done recently.
 With V6L1 base and V2L3 TCP/IP, no patches are necessary.

> The ICL has a most wonderful utility called truss which traces system
> calls, and the application is hanging on an fcntl(..., SETLKW).

SunOS has a similar facility called 'trace', its useful isnt it !

> Is System V locking compatible with Sun OS locking?

  In theory there should be no interworking problems between SVR4 NFS file
 locking and any other NFS file locking, however there are many many broken
 NFS file locking implementations around, and currently the world has a
 very bad view of NFS file locking.

  I hope all of this helps you, and your problems are resolved quickly
 and effieciently by the normal ICL support channels - do email me if you
 have any more questions !

  Regards,

    Richard Almeida.		TCP/IP+NFS Development Team.
    rpa@dsbc.icl.co.uk
From: mjb@tnord06.grenoble.hp.com (Mike Bright)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 13:46:33 GMT
Subject: Re: STREAMS info
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, GND