Obscure YP failure of automount + FIX

[Mario Wolczko]

PROBLEM

automount dies when starting up with the error

yp_all: TCP channel create failure: RPC: Remote system error - Connection
timed out

After that, all attempts to reference a file in an automounted filesystem
hang with

NFS server (pid #@/pathname) not responding still trying

(where # is the pid of the dead automount, and pathname is the directory
for autmount mount-points).  After 60seconds the request times out.

(PROBABLE) CAUSE

Some sort of YP problem with the auto.master map.  We only run automount
on one YP server, not the master, so don't have an auto.master map.  This
seems to cause the above problem, intermittently (for us, four times in
the last four months).

FIX

Start automount up with the -m flag if you don't have an auto.master map,
or make an auto.master map.

Mario Wolczko

Dept. of Computer Science    Internet:   mario at ux.cs.man.ac.uk
The University               USENET: mcvax!ukc!man.cs.ux!mario
Manchester M13 9PL           JANET:      mario at uk.ac.man.cs.ux
U.K.                         Tel: +44-61-275 6146  (FAX: 6280)