Hi,
I have a server running AIX 5.3.0.0 ML 5, and on two occasions have seen issues where when the client side executes an 'ls', the output doesn't return all files (there is no difference in permissions between a file that can be listed, and a file that can't be listed), and I'm using the anonymous uid to access. At the moment I believe that both issues, although slightly different have the same root cause (feel free to disgree!):
First incident:
NFS client side = Services For Unix 3.5 NFS gateway.
The NFS gateway was able to mount the file system and list absolutely fine, however clients accessing the NFS gateway server were unable to list all files. At the time I mounted the same file system onto another AIX (5.3.0.0. ML 5) and could list all files as normal. This appears to have been resolved at the time by re-exporting the file system and re-mounting the file system on the NFS gateway server.
Second incident:
NFS client side = AIX 5.3.0.0
The client side in this incident was the same server that I was unable to replicate incident 1 with. The client side was able to list all files, apart from one file on the export. I unmounted and remounted the file system, and the server was able to list it.
In both of the above, I was able to access the file from the NFS client by using the file name (i.e. ls -l <filename>), however the file wasn't listed using 'ls'.
I did find APAR IY73615 which appears to be a similar problem, however this concerns non AIX clients (so only applicable to incident 1). By the time incident 2 occured (a week later) I was aware of the above, and touched the affected file, but was still unable to list it (though this was AIX to AIX). Both AIX servers are also on ML 5, and this problem appears to have resolved in ML 3.
I've spent quite a bit of time reading (redbooks, IBM's documentation site, forums) but haven't been able to find anything concerning this problem. The next time it happens I'll try to use syslog to generate some output, but am keen to know if anyone has come across this, or any thoguhts on how best to tackle it.
Many thanks,
Rich