> actually i believe it is quite common to mount /home on an nfs server. Means you get the same home whereever you log on from.
I think it's the other way round: home resides on the the server, and it's mounted on the workstation(s) to make sure you have the same home regardless of the workstation you log into. For some reason, Vik has his home on his workstation, and wants to mount it on his server. A few years ago, I found that shutting down a machine which has NFS filesystems mounted is impossible without a push on the hardware panic button if the NFS server(s) in question does not respond, e.g. because it's been shut down already. Unless you want to wait for dozens of minutes, which are the NFS timeouts, that is. This situation sucks hamsters with straws. All the NFS mount options (soft, hard, intr, or any combination) don't do anything simply because they require a signal (i.e. ^C) to be sent to the process which accesses the NFS-mounted filesystem. While you watch all the shutdown messages scroll past on the screen, you can do whatever you like but you sure ain't gonna send any of those signals. You either wait for a very long time or push the button, or flick the switch. Did I mention suck factor already? As Vik mounts filesystems both ways, regardless of which machine he shuts down first, he'll be in for a long waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Anyways, I never found a solution. If anyone has one, please speak up. Volker
