Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: flee@shire.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: The answer is NFS.  What was the question?
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <3831@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 89 01:11:17 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 29, message 12 of 17

We have a gaggle of semi-autonomous machines: Sun4s, IBM RTs, each with
its own disks.  We use the automounter to mount people's home directories
(among other things).

The problem is when a machine goes away%.  Any process NFS-busy on that
machine's disk gets hosed until the machine comes back.  This is not
unreasonable (although redundant volumes might be nice).

The real problem is that *everyone* who mounts from that machine
eventually gets hosed.  Because getwd() eventually tries to stat() all the
filesystems in /etc/mtab (to recreate /tmp/.getwd).

Not very friendly.

"Remove the /tmp/.getwd efficiency hack" is not sufficient.  You can still
get screwed if you have NFS directories mounted on the same level.

"Don't use NFS" is inconvenient.  I'm not sure I can convince anyone this
is a good idea unless there's an alternative.

Does anyone have any suggestions?  Is there some magic NFS incantation
that will cure the common cold?

NFS seems adequate for client/fileserver types, but seems lacking for
equal peers.

% The automounter sometimes goes away, but that's a different story.
--
Felix Lee	flee@shire.cs.psu.edu	*!psuvax1!shire!flee