[comp.sys.att] "Link has been severed"

hallt@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (Tim C. Hall) (03/06/91)

  Hi all,
    I have an extremely aggravating problem.  We run backup scripts
  nightly that gather all modified files into a monster file in cpio
  format, then transfer that file to a centralized backup host something
  like this:

  find / -mtime -5 -print | cpio -ocB > $BACKUPFILE
  mount -d BACKUP /usr/remote
  (where BACKUP is a remote directory advertised through RFS)
  cp $BACKUPFILE /usr/remote

    Everything works fine until the cp statement is run.  About half the
  time the file copies successfully.  The other half of the time it will
  bomb out saying "cp: Link has been severed".  We've tried using cpio
  instead, but it does exactly the same thing with the error statement:

	"cpio:write() in bwrite() failed

		     Link has been severed"

    I've had this happen to me while running the script manually, and the
  wierd thing is the remote directory is still mounted and accessible
  after the failure.  I've checked the network immediately after such a 
  failure, and it's fine.  Is there any way to fix this problem, or to make
  cp or cpio more fault tolerant so they will retry?  Some days this
  never happens, other days it does this constantly.  Any comments
  or suggestions are more than welcome.  Please reply via e-mail to:
  thall%spacecom.spacenet-gw.af.mil@server.af.mil   

  Thanks in advance.

				 Mr. Tim C. Hall, System Administrator
				 Air Force Space Command

josie@cbnewsk.att.com (jack.y.gross) (03/08/91)

I would guess that you are running RFS over TCP/IP. If you are you 
should upgrade to WIN/3B 3.2 which is available now.

It has a fix that solves RFS connections dying under load. It is
available via the AT&T hotline, 800-922-0354. One word of warning,
you must upgrade all machines on your network at the same time or you 
will experience a MAJOR problem on all the machines on your network. 
This new version also exists for 6386 and it's called WIN/386 3.2.



			Jack Gross
			AT&T Bell Laboratories
			307 Middletown Lincroft Rd.
                        Lincroft NJ 07738
                        (201)576-3197

brad@bradley.bradley.edu (Bradley E. Smith) (03/08/91)

In <1991Mar7.183356.23672@cbnewsk.att.com> josie@cbnewsk.att.com (jack.y.gross) writes:
>It has a fix that solves RFS connections dying under load. It is
>available via the AT&T hotline, 800-922-0354. One word of warning,
>you must upgrade all machines on your network at the same time or you 
>will experience a MAJOR problem on all the machines on your network. 
>This new version also exists for 6386 and it's called WIN/386 3.2.
No you don't.....what you need to set is the tunable COMPAT42 to 1 in the
/etc/master.d/tcp file......first versions of 3.2 tcp didn't have this but the
new release does.....I it supposed to be mentioned in the release notes
(which we never got).
-- 
Bradley Smith
Network & Technical Services @ Bradley University, Peoria, IL
brad@bradley.edu ---  309-677-2337