In a message dated: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 15:33:00 PST
"Taylor, ForrestX" said:
>> Is this an undocumented feature?
>
>I don't think that it is documented anywhere (Jeremy?).
Ouch! Oh well, as they say, "use the source!" :)
>Like HPA mentioned, you need 2.4 kernels to do this.
What is it about the 2.4 kernel that's different? Is it that
vfsbinds are only available in 2.4? Also, is there something in the
newer autofs or mount code that tests for 2.4 or the vfsbind feature
and decides to use that over symlinks?
I'm curious how this works, since I need to document this behavior
for our cluster development group.
>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"
So the only mention of 'nosymlink' is in an example auto.net file
that only comes with the autofs source? It seems like this should be
a documented option in either the autofs or mountd man pages.
>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?
I might not have made this clear, but, I'm only looking for
documentation at this point so I can, in turn, document a proposed
integration plan. Our current NFS server is running 2.2.20, which,
as has been noted several times, won't provide a symlink optimization
over-ride.
But since you asked:
$ cat /etc/auto.nfs
* -rw,nosymlink,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr,bg zaphod:/nfs/&
Notice the 'nosymlink' in there. This was placed in there a long
time ago as the result of a different discussion my colleague had on
this list. At the time it was mentioned to use 'nosymlink'. This
was in Aug 2000, well before 2.4 existed. It's never worked for us.
Of course, if it is dependant upon a 2.4 kernel, and we're running
2.2.20, then it stands to reason that it won't work. However, since
the discussion on this list was in Aug 2000, and 2.4.0 was released
Jan 4 2001, then that leads me to believe that nosymlink either is
not dependant upon 2.4, or, this feature was in anticipation of 2.4,
and never worked before 2.4.
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
