IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 006 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

NFS clients hang and df commands block waiting on the server.

Environment & Reproduction

IBM AIX 7.2 LPAR exhibiting NFS mount hang issues under standard PowerVM workloads.

mount
nfsstat -c

Root Cause Analysis

Stale file handle or server-side rpc.lockd outage breaks NFS sessions.

Quick Triage

Confirm scope with errpt, recent changes, and subsystem state via lssrc.

lssrc -g nfs
rpcinfo -p server1

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Trace nfsstat retransmits and check rpcinfo against the server.

nfsstat -m
rpcinfo -p server1

Solution – Primary Fix

Unmount stale handles and remount with current options.

umount -f /nfs/share
mount server1:/share /nfs/share

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Switch to NFSv4 with delegation if v3 locks remain unstable.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Confirm subsystem returns to RUNNING state and errpt shows no new entries.

df /nfs/share
nfsstat -c | head

Rollback Plan

Restore prior configuration from mksysb or alt_disk_install clone if the fix regresses.

umount /nfs/share  # remove from /etc/filesystems if obsolete

Prevention & Hardening

Encode the fix in NIM customisation scripts and monitor via topas/nmon.

smit chnfsdom  # set NFSv4 domain consistently

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

errpt LABEL=NFS_SERVER_DOWN; rpc.lockd restarts

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.1.

View all aix-7.1 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

AIX NFS Administration Guide