On SLES 10 SP1 systems, whenever an NFS resource is faulted and fails over to the second node, the clients, on accessing the exported file system,  may see 'Stale NFS handle' errors. This has been resolved by mounting the special file system nfsd before starting nfs daemons. This also applies to RHEL 4 systems, when the online script fails to mount /proc/fs/nfsd filesystem. The downloadable patch only includes a change in the online script, and can be applied on both RHEL and SLES systems.

Resolution

Download the 4.1MP4+e1023246.tar_288679.gz file from the Download Now link below and then unpack the file:

# mv 4.1MP4+e1023246.tar_288679.gz 4.1MP4+e1023246.tar.gz

# cksum 4.1MP4+e1023246.tar.gz
608184018       3487    4.1MP4+e1023246.tar.gz

# gzip -d 4.1MP4+e1023246.tar.gz

# tar -xf 4.1MP4+e1023246.tar

# cd 4.1MP4+e1023246

# cat README

POINT PATCH FOR VERITAS CLUSTER SERVER 4.1 MP4
==============================================

 NAME:                         4.1MP4+e1023246

 DATE:                         2007-May-14

 VCS RELEASE:                  4.1MP4

 LINUX RELEASE:                SLES 10 SP1

 RELEVANT ARCHITECTURES:       i586, x86_64, and ia64

 ETRACK REFERENCE:             1023246

 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:

 'Stale NFS handle' errors seen on accessing files exported by NFS clients
  when a service group configured with NFS fails over

 PATCH CONTAINS
 --------------
 .
 |__ online
 |__ README

 PATCH INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:
 --------------------------------

Installed this patch after installing Veritas Cluster  Server 4.1 MP4, following these steps:

 The Default value of $VCS_HOME is /opt/VRTSvcs

 1. Log in as superuser to the system where the point patch is to be installed.

 2. Go to the directory  $VCS_HOME/bin/NFS:
       #cd $VCS_HOME/bin/NFS

 3. Copy online as online.orig on all nodes of the cluster:

       #cp online online.orig

 4. On each node of the cluster, copy the "online" from this patch to $VCS_HOME/bin/NFS/online:

       #cp /PointPatchDir/online ./online