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We run a small linux cluster of 20 hosts running rhel(5and6). Each host has a native user nm with the home area mounted on the machine /export/home/nm. We use NIS/NFS for individual user accounts. Recently we purchased a new NAS server (host name eagle) to replace our old snap servers (host name croc). I was tasked with migrating the home areas from croc to eagle.

First thing I did was tarred all user data and untar in the desired location in eagle

cd /misc/croc_all/
tar cf - users | (cd /misc/eagle_all; tar xf -)

I then editted auto.home on each host from

nm      $HOST:/export/home/nm
*       croc:/users/&

to 

nm      $HOST:/export/home/nm
*       eagle:/nfs/share/users/&

I did some basic testing creating new files in /home/myaccount/ and seeing them appear in /misc/eagle_all/users/myaccount/ as expected (instead of /misc/croc_all/users/myaccount/)

However we recently started noticing some bugs with firefox (thunderbird,acroread also). When individual users try to use firefox we notice the following things:

No bookmarks
Search engine doesn't work
Menu button doesn't work

I then compared my firefox profile in ~myaccount/.mozilla/firefox/xxx.default/ to the previous home area /misc/croc_all/users/.mozilla/firefox/xxx.default/ and found discrepancies in many files such as places.sqlite which I believe contains bookmarks information. Thus I decided to rsync these 2 directories

rsync -avzp /misc/croc_all/users/myaccount/.mozilla/firefox/xxx.default/ ~myaccount/.mozilla/firefox/xxx.default

But my problems remain - No bookmarks, no working search engine, the browser is buggy and prone to crashing.

Firefox works fine for the native user nm. This leads me to believe something is corrupt in the profile but I have no idea where to look. As far as I can tell the profile directories are now equivalent. I appreciate this is not a firefox/mozilla forum but I think the problem relates to how I have moved the home areas rather than firefox itself.

Not sure if it related but acroread has also became buggy - It crashes frequently. Acroread also works fine under native nm user

Any ideas?

I have noticed a few additional error messages in the terminal today which may or may not be related

(i) When opening google-chrome from the command line I have noticed a 'No locks available' message being communicated. (ii) when saving a document with libre office, I get the message 'Error during shared access to /home/myaccount/.config/libreoffice/4/...'

moadeep
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    Just to fully control for all changes, if you create a new user that automounts home from the same NFS server (eagle) do the issues remain? Purpose is to demonstrate whether it really is the data within the home directory or if the new NAS appliance is just flaky for some other reason. If the new user has the same problem the issue is with communication with the NAS appliance. – Bratchley Feb 23 '15 at 16:42
  • @Bratchley I have created a new user and the same problem exists. Any ideas what the communication problem with the NAS appliance could be – moadeep Feb 24 '15 at 09:19
  • you can check `dmesg` for specific errors but I'm willing to bet it's a latency issue where random IOP's to the NAS are timing out. – Bratchley Feb 24 '15 at 15:28
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    From the chrome and libreoffice errors, it sounds like the new NAS server doesn't have NFS locking enabled, or a firewall is blocking it. – Mark Plotnick Mar 01 '15 at 03:34

2 Answers2

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Do you have access to the old machine?

If yes, you can export all of bookmarks as json file and import them. Even you can install import/export cookie extension on old machine to export your all cookies.


But new machine:

It has 2 states :

  1. You need to new data on new machine.
  2. You don't need data on new machine

If you're in second state, you can:

rm -rf /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.defualt/*

easily in new machine, Then scp your old data and import bookmarks and your cookies to new machine.


Final Note: set permission

somethingSomething
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PersianGulf
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  • I have essentially done this already. The copied profile data does not appear when I open the firefox browser on the new home destination – moadeep Feb 24 '15 at 09:08
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Firefox profiles are not designed for simultaneous access from many Firefox instances. Be sure to only run Firefox once for every user with home folder published on the network. Actually Firefox usually warns about profile being in use, but it depends on Nfs settings. Another option is to make Firefox use local profile storage.

Basilevs
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