Linux – NFS – Files on client are not appearing on server

Don't immediately appear or don't appear for some time?

NFS will by default perform a level of caching of directory and file contents at the kernel level of the system. If machine one updates a file and machine two has still got a copy of the file in cache, then if machine two attempts to access the file then it may not see the newer version of the file until its cache expires.

Check the man page for nfs for the following parameters:

   acregmin=n     The minimum time in seconds that attributes of a  regu-
                  lar  file  should  be  cached  before  requesting fresh
                  information from a server.  The default is 3 seconds.

   acregmax=n     The maximum time in seconds that attributes of a  regu-
                  lar file can be cached before requesting fresh informa-
                  tion from a server.  The default is 60 seconds.

   acdirmin=n     The minimum time in seconds that attributes of a direc-
                  tory  should be cached before requesting fresh informa-
                  tion from a server.  The default is 30 seconds.

   acdirmax=n     The maximum time in seconds that attributes of a direc-
                  tory  can be cached before requesting fresh information
                  from a server.  The default is 60 seconds.

   actimeo=n      Using actimeo sets all of acregmin, acregmax, acdirmin,
                  and  acdirmax  to  the same value.  There is no default
                  value.

   noac           Disable all forms of attribute caching entirely.   This
                  extracts  a  significant  performance  penalty  but  it
                  allows two different  NFS  clients  to  get  reasonable
                  results  when  both  clients  are actively writing to a
                  common export on the server.