Issues with NFS and SMB servers

Troubleshooting
1

Observing issues with nfs-kernel-server and samba when running DietPi on an RPi3b+ and an Asus Tinkerboard.

I get “stream stalled” errors if I try to stream from the shares with Kodi. Sometimes I can access the shares from WIndows and sometimes not, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason with that. SMB seems to work marginally better than NFS in the above use-cases. I’ve also tried installing both nfs-kernel-server and samba using dietpi-software and apt and it doesn’t seem to make any difference. The clients that I’m using to test are Kodi on a FireTV3 and Kodi and Explorer on a Windows PC.

I’m able to connect to the RPi’s NFS server and stream from the shares with Kodi and access the shares from Windows just fine if I load up a card with Raspbian so I don’t think this is a network issue. I haven’t had much better luck with TinkerOS or Armbian on the Tinkerboard.

Here’s an example /etc/exports entry that I have the described issues with (I’d prefer to use NFS if I can get it to work on DietPi):
/mnt/usb *(rw,all_squash,insecure,async,no_subtree_check,anonuid=0,anongid=0)

I’m still pretty new to SBCs in general so I’m completely at a loss on how to even begin troubleshooting this and I’ve been banging my head against it for a few weeks, now. I’d be glad to follow some troubleshooting steps or provide further info, if anybody’s able to give me a hand with this.

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

2

I am using the default settings for nfs and they work fine for communication among dietpis.

#/mnt/dietpi_userdata *(rw,async,no_root_squash,fsid=0,crossmnt,no_subtree_check)

Regarding kodi, I am using samba without issues too:

[kodi]
        comment = Storage share for kodi
        path = /mnt/storage
        browseable = yes
        create mask = 0664
        directory mask = 0775
        valid users = dietpi
        writeable = yes
        max connections = 12
3

Hi,

many thanks for your request. Strange that Raspberry OS seems to work. Because DietPi for RPi devices is build on Raspberry OS and using same software as well as kernel. Next to that dietpi-software is doing nothing else than installing software using apt. Therfore indeed it doesn’t make any difference.

4

Yeah, that’s what I gathered from my reading as well. Is anyone familiar with how to troubleshoot something like this? Is there a log I can look at that would help me see what might be up with nfs-kernel-server or samba when I see the issue occur?

5

you could set logging in samba and increase log level. You can have a look to samba wiki https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configuring_Logging_on_a_Samba_Server

for debugging NFS Server, you may have a look to following https://www.thegeekdiary.com/how-to-enable-nfs-debug-logging-using-rpcdebug/

as well you could check CPU + Mem consumption