Firefox 3.0.3 not working when profile is over a NFSv4 share.

[Frédéric Nass]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Hi,

Description :

When firefox3 is launched, whether a profile already exist or not OVER A NFSv4 /home SHARE, the firefox window opens very small. The only working button in the toolbar is the home button, loading home page successfully when pushed. Then while browsing from this web page, back and forward buttons stay greyed. URL bar is not usable, as Enter (Return) key is not functional, neither the green arrow is clickable. It has just no effect. Same behavior when firefox is launched in "safe-mode".

So firefox-3.0 over NFSv4 is almost unusable.

When using a NFSv3 share for the profile, or when using firefox with a local account and local storage, no problem at all. Everything is working as expected.

But when over new NFSv4 shares, Firefoxv3 is not working.

Package & Linux Distro description :

* Kubuntu Hardy up-to-thisdate (2008/10/27) on client side, with Firefox-3.0 v3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
* Debian Etch up-to-date on server side.

The problem appeared after upgrading user's NFS+LDAP server from Debian Sarge 3.1 to Debian Etch 4.0. I could isolate this problem as everything works well with the same Ubuntu client and NFSv3 shares and not with NFSv4 Debian Etch shares.

On the server and client sides, rpcinfo -p shows :

Server :

   program no_version protocole no_port
    100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
    100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
    100021 1 udp 32776 nlockmgr
    100021 3 udp 32776 nlockmgr
    100021 4 udp 32776 nlockmgr
    100021 1 tcp 50187 nlockmgr
    100021 3 tcp 50187 nlockmgr
    100021 4 tcp 50187 nlockmgr
    391002 2 tcp 857 sgi_fam
    100011 1 udp 879 rquotad
    100011 2 udp 879 rquotad
    100011 1 tcp 882 rquotad
    100011 2 tcp 882 rquotad
    100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
    100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
    100003 4 udp 2049 nfs
    100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
    100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
    100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
    100005 1 udp 658 mountd
    100005 1 tcp 661 mountd
    100005 2 udp 658 mountd
    100005 2 tcp 661 mountd
    100005 3 udp 658 mountd
    100005 3 tcp 661 mountd

Client :

   program no_version protocole no_port
    100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
    100024 1 udp 49896 status
    100024 1 tcp 37670 status
    100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
    100021 1 tcp 33826 nlockmgr
    100021 3 tcp 33826 nlockmgr
    100021 4 tcp 33826 nlockmgr

On server, I get a lot of errors that says (dmesg) :

lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1
lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1
lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1
....
lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1
lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1
lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1
lockd: cannot monitor 10.10.2.1

Seems like a NFS issue that has direct influence over the latest Firefox v3. (No problem with Firefox v2.)

Hope you can help with this soon,

I'm sorry this might be a NFS configuration problem on client side, but from now it has a direct and extremly painfull influence over Firefox v3 as it remains unusable...

Frédéric Nass,
Chef Exploitation, Service s2i,
Iut de Metz, Université de Metz.

PS : more log to come...

[Frédéric Nass (nass)]

uname -rv on client side : 2.6.24-17-generic #1 SMP Thu May 1 14:31:33 UTC 2008
uname -rv on server side : 2.6.18-6-686 #1 SMP Thu Oct 9 15:52:18 UTC 2008

[Frédéric Nass (nass)]

There is a report of bug that might have some similar causes : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/237970

[Frédéric Nass (nass)]

Ok I found the problem :

The server root / had been chmoded to 700 instead of 755 as expected, so that /etc/init.d/nfs-common could not start rpc.statd :

tail /var/log/syslog was showing : rpc.statd[11542]: open (/var/lib/nfs/state): Permission denied

"state" file did not exist and couldn't be created.

Thanks to this post here that helped a lot : http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=43B514AC.7080400%40thinrope.net&forum_name=nfs

So that's no Firefox bug. Just a strange behavior. And this report can be closed.

Anyway, if you get this kind of behavior as the one described above when starting Firefox 3 over NFSv4, check that way... ;-)

Bye,

Frédéric.

[Frédéric Nass (nass)]

Now rpcinfo -p on server side shows :

   program no_version protocole no_port
    100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
    100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
    100021 1 udp 32776 nlockmgr
    100021 3 udp 32776 nlockmgr
    100021 4 udp 32776 nlockmgr
    100021 1 tcp 54131 nlockmgr
    100021 3 tcp 54131 nlockmgr
    100021 4 tcp 54131 nlockmgr
    100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
    100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
    100003 4 udp 2049 nfs
    100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
    100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
    100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
    100005 1 udp 658 mountd
    100005 1 tcp 661 mountd
    100005 2 udp 658 mountd
    100005 2 tcp 661 mountd
    100005 3 udp 658 mountd
    100005 3 tcp 661 mountd
    391002 2 tcp 848 sgi_fam
    100024 1 udp 32784 status
    100024 1 tcp 42688 status
    100011 1 udp 878 rquotad
    100011 2 udp 878 rquotad
    100011 1 tcp 881 rquotad
    100011 2 tcp 881 rquotad

And everything is working as expected.

[Peter Matulis (petermatulis)]

I do not see this behaviour and neither does an acquaintance on a completely separate installation.

Firefox 3 works very well for me when home is exported with NFSv4.