IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 231 – 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

df and ls on an NFS mount hang and apps using the share become unresponsive.

Environment & Reproduction

Occurs after NFS server reboot, network blip, or stale TCP connection to the server.

Root Cause Analysis

AIX NFS client holds locks or RPC handles to an unreachable or restarted NFS server.

Quick Triage

Run mount, showmount -a server, and rpcinfo -p server to check server state.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Use nfsstat -c and netstat -an | grep 2049 to inspect NFS RPC traffic.

Solution – Primary Fix

Unmount with umount -f /mount and remount, or restart NFS client with stopsrc -g nfs.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Switch hard,intr mounts to soft,timeo=N for non-critical shares to avoid hangs.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

df returns immediately on the share and apps resume normal I/O on it.

Rollback Plan

Restore previous /etc/filesystems stanza and remount the share cleanly.

Prevention & Hardening

Use hard,intr mounts only for critical data and monitor NFS server with rpcinfo.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to portmap failures, automount errors, and TCP keepalive misconfiguration.

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

IBM AIX 7.2 NFS client and mount command documentation.