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Troubleshooting Reflection NFS Drive Mapping Problems
Technical Note 1050
Last Reviewed 07-Jul-2005
Applies To
Reflection NFS Client version 10.0 or higher
Summary
Technical Note 1050
Last Reviewed 07-Jul-2005
Applies To
Reflection NFS Client version 10.0 or higher
Summary
This technical note contains troubleshooting suggestions for problems sometimes encountered when using Reflection NFS to map a local PC drive letter to an exported file system on an NFS server.
Note the following:
- The Reflection NFS Client standalone product is also included as a component of several Reflection products. For details, refer to Technical Note 3000.
- For information about which versions of Reflection NFS are supported on each Microsoft Windows platform, see Technical Note 1866.
Identifying the Problem
The table below describes common drive mapping problems and identifies the troubleshooting sections that you should use to resolve the issue. If your problem is not listed in the table, begin with Troubleshooting Section A, and proceed consecutively through all the sections.
| Problem Descriptions |
Troubleshooting Sections |
| Some users cannot map a drive to the NFS server and are receiving errors such as "Unable to mount" or "Mount access denied." Other users are able to map drives to this NFS server. |
A, B, C, E, F |
| No one is able to map a drive to the NFS server. Everyone is receiving errors such as "Unable to mount" or "Mount access denied." |
A, B, C, D, E, F |
| Users see one of the following errors when trying to map a drive: "An extended error has occurred," "Network name could not be found," "Share name could not be found - Error 67," or "The specified share directory cannot be found." |
G |
| Users are unable to map a drive to a file system that is a symbolic link. |
H |
| Drives are not being mapped when using ypscript (NIS) to map drives at Windows startup. |
I |
| Users get the following error when trying to map an NFS drive: "Attempt to access invalid address." |
J |
Troubleshooting Steps
This section contains specific troubleshooting steps. The sections you need to use depend on the difficulties you are encountering. See the table above to identify the troubleshooting sections that are relevant to your problem, or simply begin with Section A, and proceed through all the sections.
A. Path Syntax Error
To eliminate errors in UNC path syntax, follow these steps to map an NFS drive and Reflection NFS will automatically input the path information.
- In Windows XP, click Start > right-click My Network Places > Search for computers.
In Windows 2000, right-click My Network Places and click Search for Computers.
In Windows 98/ME and Windows NT, click Start > Find > Computer.
- Enter the name or IP address of the NFS host that has the remote file system you want to map, and then click Find or Search. The host name or IP address will appear in the bottom half or right half of the window.
- If you have not already authenticated to the host, right-click the NFS host's name and click NFS Logon. Enter your User Name and Password, and then click OK to return to the prior screen.
- Double-click the NFS host name or IP address to view the host's available exported file systems. You can continue to double-click folders that are beneath this level until you reach the file system you want to map.
- Right-click the folder that represents the remote file system you want to map, and then click Map Network Drive.
- Select a drive letter or accept the default. Click OK to map the drive to your NFS file system. For further details regarding the Map Network Drive dialogue box, click Help.
B. Exported File System Restrictions
You may not be able to map an exported file system that has access restrictions specified in the /etc/exports (or equivalent) file.
The following sections describe how to determine if file system access is limited by switches in the hosts exports file.
The - access Switch
Follow these steps to determine if the - access switch is restricting access to the exported file system:
- Open the NFS Utility from the Reflection Utilities group.
- From the Services menu, Select Search for Server File Systems.
- Enter the host name or IP address, and then click Retrieve Information.
You will see a list of all exported file systems available on this host, and their individual access settings. A list of PC names or IP addresses (under the Access column) indicates that the exported File System is configured to allow remote NFS access only from the specified workstations. NFS access from all other workstations will be denied.
Other Switches
To check for further restrictions, use a terminal emulator such as "Reflection for UNIX and OpenVMS" to make a Telnet connection to the host. View the contents of the /etc/exports file or, if available, view the access information through the host's administrative utility.
If switches are being used, verify that they are not restricting access and that the syntax is correct. Refer to your host's Manual (Man) pages for available export switches and for proper syntax. To troubleshoot, remove all switches from the exported file system entry to eliminate any permission restrictions. Permissions may still be restricted at the file and directory level. See section E for further details.
If you make changes to the exports list you must re-export the /etc/exports file before the changes will take effect. On many UNIX hosts, you can use the following command to re-export: exportfs -a. To view what has been exported, use the exportfs command without the -a switch, exportfs. Typically, you must be logged on as root to issue these commands. If this syntax does not work on your host, refer to your host's Man pages for the correct syntax.
C. Available NFS Server Daemons
Use the NFS Utility to verify that the required NFS server daemons are running.
- Open the NFS Utility from the Reflection Utilities group.
- On the Services menu, click Search for Server Daemons.
- Enter the host name or IP address and click Retrieve Information.
All of the required daemons (portmapper, nfs, mountd) must have a green check by them to indicate that they are running. If they are not running, start these daemons on the host. The optional pcnfsd daemon is required for authentication and printing; it is not needed for anonymous logins. The optional nlockmgr daemon is required for file locking and sharing. If you plan to share files, this daemon should be running.
If you choose to enable TCP support in Reflection NFS, these daemons will need to be available over UDP and TCP. For more information on NFS server daemons, see Technical Note 1100.
D. Authentication
Make sure the user is authenticated to the proper NFS host. To verify the current authentication, open the NFS Utility from the Reflection Utilities group, and then click Help > About Reflection NFS. The user's current authentication for each mapped drive will be displayed.
Logon ID numbers (User ID and Group ID) often vary across hosts. A logon account for user WilliamR on one host may have different ID numbers associated with it than a logon account for user WilliamR on a second host. To eliminate potential ID conflicts, authenticate directly to the host you are trying to access.
Do not log in as root unless you have configured your exports file specifically to allow root access. For troubleshooting purposes, verify that you can login as a standard UNIX user before attempting root access.
E. Directory Permissions
The authenticating user must have sufficient UNIX privileges to the file system being mapped. The user also must have at least r-x permissions to every file system between the exported file system (as seen in the /etc/exports file) and the point on that file system to which the user is trying to map.
For example, if the exported file system is /home, and the user is attempting to map a drive to /home/international/users/billg, the user must have at least read and execute permissions (r-x) to the following file systems:
/home
/home/international
/home/international/users
/home/international/users/billg
/home/international
/home/international/users
/home/international/users/billg
For more details about UNIX permissions see Technical Note 1178.
F. Hosts File Entry
Verify that the user's IP address and PC node name are in the host's /etc/hosts file. This is not necessary on all hosts, but is often required. Try adding the workstation information to the /etc/hosts file if you are unable to map NFS drives.
The /etc/hosts file is a text file and can be edited using a UNIX text editor such as VI. You do not need to re-export or compile the /etc/hosts file after editing.
G. Host Transport Type
Windows associates each remote host name with one network transport type (NetID). Once this association is made, the host can be reached using only the specified transport type. If you have hosts configured to offer multiple transport types, such as NetBIOS and NFS, Windows will cache only one of these transport types with the host name. This situation can cause mapping, authentication, and browsing errors such as: "An extended error has occurred," "Network name could not be found," "Share name could not be found - Error 67," or "The specified share directory cannot be found."
For more details, see Technical Note 1795.
H. Symbolic Links
To map an NFS drive to a symbolic link, both the symbolic link and the true file system location must be exported. For example, if you have a symbolic link called /users/public that links to /bin/global/users/public, both file systems must be exported for NFS access. If both locations are not exported, NFS users will not be able to see or access the symbolic link.
I. Login Script Maps
The NFS client enables you to configure custom NFS settings for individual persistently mapped drives; however, the software prohibits (as of version 11.0.3) customization of non-persistent mapped drives. Drives mapped using a login script are non-persistent drives, which are recreated by the ypscript each time Windows is started.
In NFS Client versions 10.0 – 11.0.2 the software did not prohibit customization of non-persistent mapped drives. Under these versions, if you map drives using ypscript, then make custom changes to the mapped drive properties, some parts of the mapped drive details are written to the registry, and the drive may become persistent. If this happens, when the workstation is restarted, ypscript may not be able to reestablish the scripted non-persistent mapped drive. At this point, the end user will receive a ypscript error or unexpected prompts when logging on to Windows. To avoid this problem, do not customize ypscript mapped drives.
To remove existing partial registry entries, do one of the following:
- Map a persistent NFS drive to the affected drive letter and then disconnect the mapped drive.
- Edit the Windows Registry and delete the affected drive.
Warning: Proceed with extreme caution when editing the Windows Registry. It is critical to back up the Registry before you proceed. For full details and warnings regarding editing the Windows Registry, see Microsoft Article 256986:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=
In the Windows Registry, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network and delete the problem drive letter.
J. Attempt to Access Invalid Address
To bypass this error, try mapping the NFS drives using the net use command. If this workaround does not work in your environment, please contact Attachmate Technical Support. For contact information, see http://support.attachmate.com/contact/.
Using the net use command
You can execute the net use command at the Windows command (DOS) prompt, or create a .bat file that maps all of your drives. You must specify password and user name, and the /PERSISTENT switch must be set to YES.
Syntax:
NET USE [devicename | *] [\\computername\sharename[\volume] [password | *]] [/USER:[domainname\]username] [[/DELETE] | [/PERSISTENT:{YES | NO}]]Syntax may vary slightly depending on the operating system. To verify the syntax required for your host, use the net use ? command.
Examples:
net use r: \\moon\export\home blue /USER:jan /PERSISTENT:YES |
or
net use * \\moon\export\bob bobs_password /USER:bobs /PERSISTENT:YES |
Note: The /PERSISTENT switch is a global setting. Using the /PERSISTENT switch here causes all NFS mapped drives automatically reconnect at Windows logon. To determine the current state of this switch, open My Computer, click on Tools > Map Network Drive. If Reconnect at logon is enabled, the /PERSISTENT switch is set to YES.
