On Friday 11 January 2002 08:40 am, Paul Lussier wrote: > In a message dated: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 21:02:14 CST > > Todd Shoemaker said: > >Paul- > > > >Are there any docs available to explain how the OS intercepts this, and > >moreover, how does it inform autofs that some file under /mnt/autofloppy > > has been requested? > > You might try the O'Reilly NFS/NIS book, though it's terribly > outdated by now, and very SunOS 4.x specific. The man pages might > help also, I don't know. > > I understand the concepts, though I don't know where I learned them > from to be honest, years of just dealing with it I guess :) > > If you're up to it, "Use the source, Luke!" :) >
Thanks for the reply. It appears that the majority of everyone here uses autofs for automounting network shares, whereas I'm looking for an easy-to-configure app that focuses on local mount points, like cdroms, floppies, zip drives, digicams, usb devices, etc., primarily from GUI file browsers. What I'm afraid will happen is the GUI shells will begin to implement automounting at their level, which is the wrong way to go; this kind of functionality belongs close to the underlying system IMHO. Two things are needed to make this happen, as I see it: - mount points should be visible when unmounted for GUI browsing. - the kernel needs a way to disable or greatly curtail write buffering for removable devices (this may already exist, but I sure wish I had it for floppy drives that wait so long before finally committing data). Not to mention that GUI file browsers need to let go of the mount points even when they are displaying them. Of course, I've already got my autofs configured to do this, but I'm wanting to make it easier for others and also more reliably configured so that distributors will begin configuring these automounts during the install. After my current pet project finishes up I'll start digging into the autofs source (and the kernel docs; heck, who knows, maybe even the kernel source :-) ) to see how this can be accomplished. If anyone knows of any resources that would help, I'd appreciate it. -Todd
