NFS info

[Joseph Loo]

On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 17:42 +0100, Dan Track wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Joseph Loo <jloo at acm.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 15:44 +0100, Dan Track wrote:
> >> Hi
> >>
> >> I'm getting a constant problem where when I boot up a server that is
> >> moutning the /opt/logs dir from another server, the booting server
> >> hangs when the nfs server doesn't repond. Could you please give me an
> >> idea what options or setups I could use to get teh booting server to
> >> boot up and not hang on the nfs mount section?
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> Dan
> >>
> > I use the soft,intr options on my nfs mounts.
> > To me the best way is not to mount the directory unless you need to. I
> > use autofs to do the mounts for me. That way, when I need to mount the
> > nfs directory, it will automatically mount and unmount the directory.
> > This works whenever I reference the directory, e.g., ls /opt/log. this
> > will cause a mount. I also have a 60 second timeout, so that if I do not
> > use the mount, it will unmount the directory automatically.
> > --
> > Joseph Loo
> > jloo at acm.org
> 
> 
> Hi
> 
> Thanks for the info. I agree with the fact that source of the problem
> should be addressed, it's just that the nfs share isn't critical while
> the applications running on the server are, so from a worse case
> scenario we just want the server up even if we can't get the nfs
> shares mounted.
> 
> As a point, could you let me know why we can't mount a critical path
> e.g /usr/local/lib using autofs? Wouldn't any request e.g from a
> script or from cron or any other process cause the path to be mounted?
> Is there any problesm with this approach?
> 
> Thanks
> Dan
> 
When I was an administrator for solaris, I would do the autofs on
the /opt directory which is the equivalnet of /usr/local. As of this
time, I do not see any problem.

You miss the point of autofs. As soon as you access the path, it does
the automount before it allows you to continue. you do not need to mount
it from a script. For example, I have /home/username setup to automount.
As soon as I log on, it mounts it automatically.

Another advantage of autofs, you can do the following
ls /net/machinename/qualified_path_of_your_exported_directory.

You can also link to the /net path and it will also automount.
-- 
Joseph Loo
jloo at acm.org