NFS

From Admin-SIG

Someday, somebody should cover:

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exports

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autofs

There are a lot of complicated autofs pages, talking about how to automount and detetect filesystem types on CD-ROMS, and USB FlashDrives. It was originally built with NFS in mind. It is pretty simple for NFS.

  • make a file /etc/auto.master which points to the other mount areas: 
    /mnt    /etc/auto.nfs
  • make this referenced file name the mount points you want: 
    scratchArea     -fstype=nfs,soft,intr   nfsServerName:/scratch

It is possible that adding a -P to the flags in the middle column will remove the need for a local portmapper. (Can somebody confirm?)

  • Start up your automount daemon, usually like: 
  /etc/init.d/autofs start

Now, when you touch /mnt/scratchArea, it should automagicly get mounted.

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portmapper

I have had some problems in the past where mount to an NFS share hangs for a minute or two, then works fine. Errors were seen in the log about the portmapper failing.

Frankly, I don't know what the portmapper is, just that it has something to do with RPC, which has something to do with NFS. It appears the the local mount daemon uses this portmapper to get things started, then goes out to the NFS server to mount the share.

So... if you don't have a local portmapper, something times-out, then it goes to the server and works. If you run the local portmapper, it figures this out immediately, and mounts the server in the blink of an eye.

So... if your NFS mounts pause for a minute or two, then work... of if they time-out and do NOT work, try making sure that your local portmapper daemon is running.

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