Re: Emacs Hangs on Filesystem Operations on Stale NFS

[Stefan Monnier]

>> - It seems your unreliable NFS server is mounted "hard" rather than "soft".
>>   Why is that?  "man mount" on my Debian machine doesn't find any "hard"
>>   or "soft" options, so has the soft-mount option disappeared?
> Try nfs(5) for a description of "hard" and "soft".

[ Ah, indeed.  Not sure why it's not in `mount` even though that page also
  claims to have NFS-specific options.  In any case, this confirms tht
  soft mounts still exist.  Thanks.  ]

> Hard mounts are the default because soft mounts usually cause more
> problems than they solve.

Indeed, but the OP's description of the behavior he's trying to get from
Emacs suggests maybe he'd be satisfied by a `soft` mount.

>>   What are
>>   applications usually expected to do when accessing a stale NFS server?
>
> Could we start by getting a more precise definition of "stale NFS
> server"?  I can think of at least 3 different situations that might be
> meant:
>   - the server is down temporarily
>   - the server is down permanently
>   - the server is up, but it no longer exports that filesystem

- the server is up, but the connection is temporarily not available.
  [ where "temporarily" can last a long time.  ]
- buggy NFS (the server is up and exporting, the connection as well,
  yet the NFS client stalls for some unknown reason).


        Stefan