diff -urN nfsd-ref/fs/nfsd/nfsfh.c nfsd/fs/nfsd/nfsfh.c
--- nfsd-ref/fs/nfsd/nfsfh.c	Sun Dec 24 17:09:05 2000
+++ nfsd/fs/nfsd/nfsfh.c	Sun Dec 24 17:09:26 2000
@@ -332,7 +332,7 @@
 	struct dentry *dentry, *result = NULL;
 	struct dentry *tmp;
 	int  found =0;
-	int err;
+	int err = -ESTALE;
 	/* the sb->s_nfsd_free_path_sem semaphore is needed to make sure that only one unconnected (free)
 	 * dcache path ever exists, as otherwise two partial paths might get
 	 * joined together, which would be very confusing.
@@ -351,15 +351,14 @@
 	if (!result || IS_ERR(result)
 	    || !(result->d_flags & DCACHE_NFSD_DISCONNECTED)
 	    || (!S_ISDIR(result->d_inode->i_mode) && !needpath)) {
-		up(&sb->nfsd_free_path_sem);
-		err = PTR_ERR(result);
-		if (IS_ERR(result))
-			goto err_out;
-		err = -ESTALE;
+		up(&sb->s_nfsd_free_path_sem);
 		if (!result) {
 			dprintk("find_fh_dentry: No inode found.\n");
 			goto err_out;
 		}
+		err = PTR_ERR(result);
+		if (IS_ERR(result))
+			goto err_out;
 		if ( (result->d_flags & DCACHE_NFSD_DISCONNECTED))
 			nfsdstats.fh_anon++;
 		return result;
diff -urN nfsd-ref/fs/nfsd/vfs.c nfsd/fs/nfsd/vfs.c
--- nfsd-ref/fs/nfsd/vfs.c	Sun Dec 24 17:09:05 2000
+++ nfsd/fs/nfsd/vfs.c	Sun Dec 24 17:09:26 2000
@@ -412,8 +412,16 @@
 };
 
 static struct accessmap	nfs3_anyaccess[] = {
-    /* XXX: should we try to cover read/write here for clients that
-     * rely on us to do their access checking for special files? */
+	/* Some clients - Solaris 2.6 at least, make an access call
+	 * to the server to check for access for things like /dev/null
+	 * (which really, the server doesn't care about).  So
+	 * We provide simple access checking for them, looking
+	 * mainly at mode bits
+	 */
+    {	NFS3_ACCESS_READ,	MAY_READ			},
+    {	NFS3_ACCESS_EXECUTE,	MAY_EXEC			},
+    {	NFS3_ACCESS_MODIFY,	MAY_WRITE			},
+    {	NFS3_ACCESS_EXTEND,	MAY_WRITE			},
 
     {	0,			0				}
 };
@@ -1738,12 +1746,17 @@
 		inode->i_uid, inode->i_gid, current->fsuid, current->fsgid);
 #endif
 
-	if (acc & (MAY_WRITE | MAY_SATTR | MAY_TRUNC)) {
-		if (EX_RDONLY(exp) || IS_RDONLY(inode))
-			return nfserr_rofs;
-		if (/* (acc & MAY_WRITE) && */ IS_IMMUTABLE(inode))
-			return nfserr_perm;
-	}
+	/* only care about readonly exports for files and
+	 * directories. links don't have meaningful write access,
+	 * and all else is local to the client
+	 */
+	if (S_ISREG(inode->i_mode) || S_ISDIR(inode->i_mode)) 
+		if (acc & (MAY_WRITE | MAY_SATTR | MAY_TRUNC)) {
+			if (EX_RDONLY(exp) || IS_RDONLY(inode))
+				return nfserr_rofs;
+			if (/* (acc & MAY_WRITE) && */ IS_IMMUTABLE(inode))
+				return nfserr_perm;
+		}
 	if ((acc & MAY_TRUNC) && IS_APPEND(inode))
 		return nfserr_perm;