[gentoo-user] Autofs or ivman?

[gentoo-user] Autofs or ivman?

[Stroller]

Hi there,

I was on #gentoo yesterday asking about autofs & someone recommended  
ivman instead.
Which does gentoo-users think I should use?

My principal interest is in NFS mounting /usr/portage on my PS3 & an  
old laptop, as neither has a lot of disk-space - I have an always-on  
server that can export the directory - but also in mounting a bunch  
of /media/video/[0..9]/ directories.

I guess I'm likely to use CD / DVD in the near future & USB / CF  
flash memory at some point in the future - I can imagine it being  
desirable to have the system mount one device as /mnt/external- 
harddrive and another at /media/photos (determined by device / vendor  
ID?) but I'm not sure if this is the job of the automounter or udev?

Reading the autofs howto [1], it bothers me that common practice is  
to have a bunch of /mnt/auto/foo, /mnt/auto/bar, directories  
symlinked into the places they're REALLY supposed to go. Another  
guide makes a /var/autofs/ tree of directories, but whatever - why do  
I have to have this extra clutter of all these extra symlinks?!?! I  
just want the network filesystem to be mounted in some sensible  
place, just as if I'd typed `mount server:/usr/portage /usr/portage`.  
I appreciate there's probably a good reason for the way autofs works,  
bit it does make ivman look more interesting.

My concern with ivman is that googling it doesn't turn up a bunch of  
beginners' guides the way googling autofs does. The ivman howto [3]  
discusses incompatibility problems with different versions, and  
indicates that the /etc/init.d/script isn't provided by the ebuild,  
but must be managed outside of portage. I don't have a problem with  
that, per-se, but it suggests to me that ivman isn't so well  
supported, a suggestion which seems to be supported by ivman's  
sourceforge page [4] which was last updated February last year and  
which says "Ivman is currently developed by ?????"

So it's a bit of a dilemma for me. Because of my compulsive nature,  
autofs' clutter of symlinks really bothers me, and ivman's  
ConfigActions look really powerful - it looks like you can have it  
automatically exec a command when a specific device is plugged in,  
for instance.

But I want to set this up once & forget it - I really don't want to  
be learning & configuring now a package which will be unsupported in  
the future.

Thanks in advance for any comments,

Stroller.




[1] http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Auto_mount_filesystems_(AUTOFS)
[2] http://www.greenfly.org/tips/autofs.html
[3] http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_ivman
[4] http://ivman.sourceforge.net/
-- 
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Autofs or ivman?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 06 January 2008, Stroller wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I was on #gentoo yesterday asking about autofs & someone recommended
> ivman instead.
> Which does gentoo-users think I should use?

Dilemmas like this are best resolved by finding out what problem a 
technology was designed to solve.

A good example of the kind of problem autofs solves is exporting home 
directories on a large server that has many accounts, used in 
conjunction with NFS and NIS, and anyone can log in from any 
workstation at any time. This scenario is common - think thin clients

Say you have 100 accounts and user joe logs onto the network. You 
*could* export /home to his workstation, but that exposes everyone 
else's homedir as well. With autofs you essentially tell the server 
that this is user joe, it exports his home dir on the fly, creates a 
directory /home/joe on his workstation (/home must already exist)and 
mounts the NFS export there.

Now, you don't appear to be doing something like that :-)

You can do many wonderful things with autofs, but it often involves 
complex hacks and workarounds, which is the impetus for other solutions 
to be developed, like ivman.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
-- 
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Autofs or ivman?

[Stroller]

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this - I've been kinda busy with  
work the last few days.


On 6 Jan 2008, at 17:25, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 06 January 2008, Stroller wrote:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I was on #gentoo yesterday asking about autofs & someone recommended
>> ivman instead.
>> Which does gentoo-users think I should use?
>
> Dilemmas like this are best resolved by finding out what problem a
> technology was designed to solve.
>
> A good example of the kind of problem autofs solves is exporting home
> directories on a large server that has many accounts...
>
> ... With autofs you essentially tell the server
> that this is user joe, it exports his home dir on the fly, creates a
> directory /home/joe on his workstation (/home must already exist)and
> mounts the NFS export there.
>
> Now, you don't appear to be doing something like that :-)

Many thanks for your reply - it was quite insightful. In fact, autofs  
would be quite useful for my /mnt/video/[a...z] volumes.

It makes me still wonder, however, why so many people seem to use  
autofs for /mnt/floppy, /mnt/cdrom &c, tho'!

> ... the impetus for other solutions
> to be developed, like ivman.

My concern over ivman - which looks ideal for much of what I want to  
do - is that it's not clear if it's maintained. For network mounting / 
usr/portage I guess I can just use NFS and just stick the mount in  
the clients' /etc/fstab, but ivman looks great for automounting  
portable media. As I said in my original posting [1], the state of  
ivman looks to be in a bit of a mess and I'm kinda reluctant to mess  
about with it if it's going to be obsolete in a year or two - someone  
please persuade me this isn't going to happen!!   ;)

Stroller.


[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/192551 
-- 
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Autofs or ivman?

[Jerry McBride]

On Thursday 17 January 2008 10:08:22 pm Stroller wrote:
> Sorry for taking so long to reply to this - I've been kinda busy with
> work the last few days.
>
> On 6 Jan 2008, at 17:25, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Sunday 06 January 2008, Stroller wrote:
> >> Hi there,
> >>
> >> I was on #gentoo yesterday asking about autofs & someone recommended
> >> ivman instead.
> >> Which does gentoo-users think I should use?
> >
> > Dilemmas like this are best resolved by finding out what problem a
> > technology was designed to solve.
> >
> > A good example of the kind of problem autofs solves is exporting home
> > directories on a large server that has many accounts...
> >
> > ... With autofs you essentially tell the server
> > that this is user joe, it exports his home dir on the fly, creates a
> > directory /home/joe on his workstation (/home must already exist)and
> > mounts the NFS export there.
> >
> > Now, you don't appear to be doing something like that :-)
>
> Many thanks for your reply - it was quite insightful. In fact, autofs
> would be quite useful for my /mnt/video/[a...z] volumes.
>
> It makes me still wonder, however, why so many people seem to use
> autofs for /mnt/floppy, /mnt/cdrom &c, tho'!
>
> > ... the impetus for other solutions
> > to be developed, like ivman.
>
> My concern over ivman - which looks ideal for much of what I want to
> do - is that it's not clear if it's maintained. For network mounting /
> usr/portage I guess I can just use NFS and just stick the mount in
> the clients' /etc/fstab, but ivman looks great for automounting
> portable media. As I said in my original posting [1], the state of
> ivman looks to be in a bit of a mess and I'm kinda reluctant to mess
> about with it if it's going to be obsolete in a year or two - someone
> please persuade me this isn't going to happen!!   ;)
>
> Stroller.
>
>
> [1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/192551

I use autofs for just about everything imagineable... What's the problem with 
using it for removable media?


-- 


From the Desk of: Jerome D. McBride
--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list