> In a message dated: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 12:30:00 PST > "Taylor, ForrestX" said: > > >Oh, I thought that you were using the auto.net script to > automount using > >machine names. What exactly are you doing, and which OS are > you using? > > No, we're not doing that. > > We're using Linux, depending upon the server, it's either 2.2.20, > 2.4.14, or 2.4.16. But right now that's sort of irrellevent, since > all I'm looking for is documentation which explains how the symlink > feature works and how to disable it. Where is the nosymlink option > mentioned. I've looked in man pages for mount, nfs, autofs, > and automount, but haven't seen any mention of 'nosymlink' anywhere. > Is this an undocumented feature?
I don't think that it is documented anywhere (Jeremy?). > Anyway, what we're doing is this. We have an nfs server which > exports a bunch of file systems to the world. All desktop clients > mount the file systems via automount. So, though on the server we > have file system names like /home1, /home2, /home3, etc. the desktops > all only see /homes and everyone's homedir "automagically" appears > mounted on /homes/<username>. > > We also run autofs on the NFS server itself so that when people log > into the system directly, they have the same view of things as they > do on their desktop systems. They usually log into this system > directly to do things like large software compilations which would > otherwise saturate the network if done via NFS (or so they say:) > > When on the NFS server though, autofs creates a symlink from say, > /homes to /home1/pll, so if I do a df I see: > > $ pwd > /homes/pll > $ df . > Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% > Mounted on > /dev/sda1 26209780 25313816 629688 98% /home1 So, does it create a symlink /homes pointing to /home1, or a /homes/pl1 pointing to /home1/pl1? > vs. what I see on my desktop: > > $ pwd > /homes/pll > $ df . > Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% > Mounted on > zaphod:/home1/pll 26209780 25319552 623952 98% > /homes/pll > > What I want to do is get the NFS server (zaphod in this case) to > appear exactly as if I'm on my desktop. IOW, I want the NFS server > to truly NFS mount it's own file systems. Like HPA mentioned, you need 2.4 kernels to do this. > > I know this probably sounds crazy, but there's good reason for doing > this. We're trying to figure out how to handle a clustered NFS > server environment. Currently if one logs into an NFS server which > is clustered *and* is running autofs, they end up in the directory > structure of the actual file system. If the cluster needs to fail > over for what ever reason, either, you need to implement the cluster > with a 'forced unmount' capability, or, you need to have the file > systems actually be NFS mounted elsewhere other than on the real, > local mount point. > > The 'forced unmount' option is ugly, since it will violently kill all > processes which are preventing that file system from being unmounted, > which could result in the user in question losing data. > Unfortunately with the symlink optimization turned on, this is what > we have to resort to. Or, we could manually nfs mount all local > file systems to a second mount point via the fstab file. > > This second option is ugly, because it error prone, it forces all > file systems to always be mounted twice, and it requires manual > upkeep in 3 locations (2 /etc/fstabs + automount maps) > > If we could turn of symlink optimizations and have the NFS server NFS > mount it's own file systems on demand to another location, we can get > the NFS server to fail over without the user ever noticing. This is > currently exactly what happens when a user is NFS mounting a file > system on to their desktop system from a clustered NFS server now. > > Does that help clarify what we're trying to do? Yes. Here is the excerpt from auto.net: # add "nosymlink" here if you want to suppress symlinking local filesystems # add "nonstrict" to make it OK for some filesystems to not mount opts="-fstype=nfs,hard,intr,nodev,nosuid" I just tested your situation on my Red Hat 7.2 box. I added an entry in /etc/auto.misc: test -fstype=nfs myhost:/home and it seems to work. No symlink, and it shows up in df (twice). What does the line in your auto.* file look like? Forrest > > Thanks, > -- > > Seeya, > Paul > ---- > > God Bless America! > > ...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around, > and we never stop trying to be better. > Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon > >
