Detecting whether an NFS share is offline

This isn't strictly an rsnapshot issue, but it's related. :)

I have two Linux Redhat servers: a production server and a backup
server.  The servers can access each other using NFS.

I need a way for either server to detect whether the other is online and
available for file transfer.

I've found that if I attempt to mount one server from the other, e.g.
"mount /mnt/prod" or "mount /mnt/backup", and the referenced server is
down, the mount command never returns.

My research indicates this is an intrinsic characteristic of NFS.  NFS
will keep making retries indefinitely.

Any suggestions are appreciated. :)

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