NFS problems

["Dave Sill" <ds-linux-xfs@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov>]

I'm running 2.4.7-pre3-xfs checked out from CVS on July 11 on a
2-processor Dell server. I'm serving a 200 GB hardware RAID XFS
filesystem to a couple of Origin 200 servers. (I had to apply a small
patch to the kernel to work around an IRIX NFS bug having to do with
getting the current working directory.)

When I'm writing to the file system via NFS, performance is very
bursty--it'll copy 200-300 MB pretty quickly, then stop for 2-3
minutes--during which any attempt to access the RAID, even locally,
hangs.

The IRIX systems also frequently report that the Linux NFS server
isn't responding. For example:

Aug 10 08:41:15 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs not responding still trying
Aug 10 08:41:39 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs ok
Aug 10 08:42:13 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs not responding still trying
Aug 10 08:42:18 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs ok
Aug 10 08:42:24 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs not responding still trying
Aug 10 08:42:24 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs ok
Aug 10 08:45:11 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs not responding still trying
Aug 10 08:45:15 6A:daacl unix: NFS server daacsnfs ok

(daacsnfs is the Linux box, daacl is an IRIX box)

Any ideas about what's wrong?

The Linux server also has a 200 GB e2fs filesystem that doesn't
exhibit the same behavior.

-Dave