Getting “RPC timed out” while accessing NFS share from UNIX client

Recently we got a case where customer was unable to access NFS share from Unix client. The share was hosted on a Windows 2003 R2 SP2 server. The Unix client was HP Unix.

During troubleshooting, we did check the Server for NFS properties. Then we ran couple of commands to check the NFS share from the windows share:

· showmount –e localhost ( from Windows server) => This will list the number for NFS share

· rpcinfo –p localhost => This will list the NFS related services

· nfsshare <sharename> => This will list the nfs share properties

· cacls < Location of the NFS share> => This will list the NTFS permission on the NFS share

Everything looked stable till this point. Also there were no events logs generated.

Then we went to the Unix box and tried the following command:

· rpcinfo –p <Windows Server> => This will list the NFS services on the Windows box

This command came back with an error “Unknown host”

Also the showmount command returned the error “RPC timed out”

We checked the /etc/host file in the Unix client and found that the entry for the windows hostname was incorrect. The IP address was incorrect.

We made the changes and it resolved the issue.