Not File System Specific? (Not Quite) 295file server goes down. Why not soft-mount the server instead? Because if a
server is soft-mounted, and it is too heavily loaded, it will start corrupting
data due to problems with NFS’s write-back cache.
Another way that NFS can also freeze your system is with certain programs
that expect to be able to use the Unix system call creat() with the POSIX-
standard “exclusive-create” flag. GNU Emacs is one of these programs.
Here is what happens when you try to mount the directory /usr/lib/emacs/
lock over NFS:
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1991 02:16:03 GMT
From: [email protected] (Mark V. Meuer)
Organization: Minnesota Supercomputer Institute
Subject: Re: File find delay within Emacs on a NeXT
To: [email protected]^4In article <[email protected]>
[email protected] (Mark V. Meuer) writes:I have a NeXT with version 2.1 of the system. We have Emacs
18.55 running. (Please don’t tell me to upgrade to version
18.57 unless you can also supply a pointer to diffs or at least s-
and m- files for the NeXT.) There are several machines in our
network and we are using yellow pages. The problem is that
whenever I try to find a file (either through “C-x C-f”, “emacs
file” or through a client talking to the server) Emacs freezes
completely for between 15 and 30 seconds. The file then loads
and everything works fine. In about 1 in 10 times the file loads
immediately with no delay at all.Several people sent me suggestions (thank you!), but the obnoxious
delay was finally explained and corrected by Scott Bertilson, one of
the really smart people who works here at the Center.For people who have had this problem, one quick hack to correct it is
to make /usr/lib/emacs/lock be a symbolic link to /tmp. The full
explanation follows.I was able to track down that there was a file called !!!SuperLock!!!
in /usr/lib/emacs/lock, and when that file existed the delay would
occur. When that file wasn’t there, neither was the delay (usually).(^4) Forwarded to UNIX-HATERS by Michael Tiemann.