NFS help

[brad.mugleston at comcast.net]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005, Greg Julius wrote:

>
> Yeah, callous was probably the correct word.  But you are right, boning up
> on
> these facilities is the thing to do.
>
> In support of Brad, however, sometimes a bit of plain old-fashioned help
> navigating the waters is pricelss.
>
> >Cause you are trying to do something you have
> >no idea how to do.  The reason I am saying this is that you need to know
> how
> >a name is resolved in order to see how to mount the resource.  Tha
> >assignment of the IP is irrelevant to what you are doing, what you should
> be
> >worried about is how everyone resolves the name you assign the resource and
> >that will be done thru the DNS.  So if everyone is looking for resource A
> >then when DHCP assigns a IP to resource A and that resource is reported to
> >the DMS server then everyone can mount the resource cause they know who and
> >what it is cause the DNS is going to report its current ip address and if
> it
> >changes it will report the new one so everyone will always be happy.  So
> >forget the assignment of a fixed IP and worry about resolving the name with
> >the DNS.  Hopefully you will go out on the net and search for the facts you
> >need and see what you need to do.  It might make it easier in your mind to
> >assign a fixed IP but it in no way a necessary requirement for what you are
> >wanting to do.  Good Luck!!!!!!!!!1
>
> Brad, As I understand it, you want to be able to use a name in the NFS
> mount.
>
> A name is a good thing for it's value as a handle.  It's much the same
> reason
> we use domain names instead of IP quads to navigate the web.  Names are just
> easier and if necessary the underlying address can change without everyone
> having to update their URLs.
>
> Having said that, the point was made that having the IP address dance around
> would not be a terribly good idea.
>
> One of the replies was to the point you can prevent the IP from changing
> until you want it to by using some DHCP parameters to have DHCP reserve the
> desired IP for that server's use by keying on the MAC address.  However,
> unless the DNS has the same IP address assignment, nothing else is going to
> know what that IP is.
>
> To do what you want to do, that is give a name to a device/server/host that
> is centrally managed (meaning you don't want to update every hosts file on
> your network), then you need to have both DHCP and DNS running on your
> network.  And you must be able to administer them.  I strongly suggest that
> DNS and DHCP services DO run on the same server.  At a minimum, your DHCP
> server is going to require an assigned (by you) IP address.
>
> You can set up DHCP to update the DNS - called Dynamic DNS (DDNS) - when IP
> assignments are made.  OR, more simply, you can just have DHCP 'stick' the
> address based upon the MAC address and at the same time manually update your
> DNS to associate the name with the same IP.  After all, you are
> administering
> both of them.  That makes it just two places to update should you want to
> change the address.
>
> This latter is the first thing I would do.  Break your training project into
> pieces.  1) Make sure the NFS stuff is working by using an IP you have in
> mind.  2) Set up DHCP to 'stick' the IP to the desired machine by the MAC
> address.  3) Update the DNS by manually assigning the name to the IP.
> 4) Make sure you can reach the machine by name (use ping for example).
> 5) Change the NFS mount to use the Name and make sure it works that way.
> 6) If you are still up to it, then play with getting DHCP to update the DNS.
>
> I hope that's useful to you.  There is some good material out on the web
> for setting up stuff such as this.  I've had good luck getting assistance
> from the folks who frequent this list.
>
> Blessings,
> -g
>
Greg,

Thanks for the info and that is the plan I will take - I'm still
trying to get the NFS to just work between my two machines right
now - no luck.

Strange, I can't SSH from my NFS client to my NFS server but I
can SSH from my NFS server to my NFS client - getting the same
error message "no route to host".  I think once I get that
cleared things will move ahead a little easier.

Part of my problem is I'm working on something then I think ahead
of myself - I haven't even got NFS working and I'm wondering how
it's going to work if the IP changes.....  I need to use names
not numbers if the numbers are going to change as I'll never get
it straight fast enough for the family - I'll start getting calls
from home "Dad I can't get to my homework!!!!"

I've only got 24 hours in a day and other than weekends I don't
have a lot of time to play Linux (and then it's worked in between
honey-do's).  Reading is great, I learn alot but if I spend all
my free time reading on how to do something it can be a week
before I get to use it and with as much information that there is
on the web there is a LOT to read...

Thanks

Brad