Mutt, NFS and errno = 31

[João Oliveira]

Hi all,

I came across a strange situation and need some wise advice:

-- My Mail folder is a local MH folder on a Linux machine

-- I am running mutt 1.5.x and everything is quite fine, up to this
point there is nothing to report.

-- I also have a NFS-mounted folder with other stuff (no Mail
there). This is a Windows machine, and Samba manages that.

-- A few days ago I decided to move the local Mail folder to the NFS
area so that it is more accessible. Should be easy.

-- Moved it there, placed a link to it, tried mutt and everything
was ok. Really easy.

-- Minutes later I tried to save a message in this NFS-mounted Mail
folder and bad things happened:

After several seconds trying to save it mutt gave "too many
links, errno = 31" and I was surprised to see that the folder
where I tried to save the message was FILLED with copies of the
message to be saved, hundreds of them. I tried several times,
same result. Operation fails, folder is awash with copies.

-- I moved back Mail from NFS to local. Everything is fine.

-- I moved Mail from local to NFS. Too many links again.

-- I blamed the MH folders for it and changed everything to Maildir.
Same problem again: a filled folder with 1000+ copies and errno 31.

-- I blamed the mutt version for it (1.5.x) and compiled 1.9.y. Same
problem again.

So, I need some wisdom, a magic spell or simply herbal tea. I never
saw anything like it and other software does not produce such an error
over NFS when saving files. In any case, I did not find related
messages on the mailing list. I tought that it could be a problem with
file locking, but Maildir should prevent that. Or... ?

thanks for any help and hints,

joao batista

[Michelle Konzack]

Hello,

Post by João Oliveira
-- Minutes later I tried to save a message in this NFS-mounted Mail
After several seconds trying to save it mutt gave "too many
links, errno = 31" and I was surprised to see that the folder
where I tried to save the message was FILLED with copies of the
message to be saved, hundreds of them. I tried several times,
same result. Operation fails, folder is awash with copies.
-- I moved back Mail from NFS to local. Everything is fine.
-- I moved Mail from local to NFS. Too many links again.
-- I blamed the MH folders for it and changed everything to Maildir.
Same problem again: a filled folder with 1000+ copies and errno 31.
-- I blamed the mutt version for it (1.5.x) and compiled 1.9.y. Same
problem again.

mutt works perfectly with NFS, but hiw did you mount it?

I use since more then 10 years following line in my /etc/fstab:

192.168.0.201:/home /home nfs
bg,intr,hard,tcp,vers=4,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,rw 0 0

Post by João Oliveira
thanks for any help and hints,
joao batista

Thanks in advance

[Derek Martin]

Post by João Oliveira
Hi all,
-- My Mail folder is a local MH folder on a Linux machine
-- I am running mutt 1.5.x and everything is quite fine, up to this
point there is nothing to report.
-- I also have a NFS-mounted folder with other stuff (no Mail
there). This is a Windows machine, and Samba manages that.

That is not NFS. Windows + Samba = SMB. They are completely
different protocols, and SMB has a different set of problems. I don't
know what's going on but you're going to get misleading answers (like
Michele's) because you appear to have mis-identified the type of file
store you're using.