I have spent enough time trying to solve this problem that it's time to
ask for help.

I have a RH9 server install (hostname "server") that I'm trying to get
to host a couple directories for a RH9 workstation install (hostname
"Desktop"). I can ssh from Desktop to server just fine. I also had NFS
working earlier when Desktop was a Mandrake 9.0 system, so I've got to
be close.

Client's /var/log/boot.log reports:
Jan 31 22:40:24 Desktop netfs: Mounting NFS filesystems: failed

A mount from the shell on Desktop times out.

server's /etc/exports file:
/home/law/ Desktop(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
/var/www/html/ Desktop(rw,sync,no_root_squash)

server's /etc/hosts file:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.0.3 server
192.168.0.2 Desktop

server's /etc/hosts.allow file:
#
# hosts.allow This file describes the names of the hosts which are
# allowed to use the local INET services, as decided
# by the '/usr/sbin/tcpd' server.
#
192.168.0.2: Desktop

server's /etc/hosts.deny file is empty (except comments).

Finally, here's the relevent parts of Desktop's fstab:
boot.log reports:
Jan 31 22:40:24 Desktop netfs: Mounting NFS filesystems: failed

A mount from the shell times out.
server:/home/law /mnt/server/home nfs
rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr
server:/var/www/html /mnt/server/html nfs
rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr


Did I forget anything needed for a diagnosis?

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"We should not march into Baghdad. ... Assigning young soldiers to
a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it
could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater
instability." George Bush Sr. in his 1998 book "A World Transformed"

Raptor wrote:
That's not the correct format. That file is supposed to be of the form:

service: clients

You've specified an IP address instead of a service. You want something
like:

ALL: Desktop

-or-

portmap: 192.168.0.2

The clients can be specified either by name or by IP, but you don't need
both as in your example. The service can either be "ALL" to allow all
services for that client or a list of services. I believe 'portmap' is
the proper service name for NFS. See 'man 5 hosts_access' for more
information.

John-Paul Stewart wrote:
Well I've fixed hosts.allow and re-booted several times, but still no
joy. I can still ssh just fine from Desktop to server. I did have
"server" named as "Server" in a client access file. I've also tried
Hactar's suggestions (except for the hosts.allow format).

Is there no better diagnostic tool for what can be broken? This is very
frustrating, though with ssh I can at least access that disk from
Desktop. But since it's a 300MHz processor, I don't want to do any REAL
work on it.

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"We should not march into Baghdad. ... Assigning young soldiers to
a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it
could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater
instability." George Bush Sr. in his 1998 book "A World Transformed"