[gentoo-user] autofs

[gentoo-user] autofs

[Stéphane Guedon]

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anyone use autofs to manage mounting of nfs on a laptop ? Is it fluent, easy to 
use ?
How many shares maximum ?

thanks
-- 
Stéphane Guedon
page web : http://www.22decembre.eu/
carte de visite : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.vcf
clé publique gpg : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.asc

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Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane Guedon 
did opine thusly:

> anyone use autofs to manage mounting of nfs on a laptop ? 

Is this mounting a share from an nfs server onto a laptop?

> Is it fluent,
> easy to use ?

It's NFS. The words "nfs" and "fluent, easy to use" do not belong in the same 
sentence unless there's a "not" in the middle.

The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices that can 
be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that do not change 
much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to solve.


> How many shares maximum ?

From a server? Hundreds, with ease. NFS is not the bottleneck, your shares are 
limited by how much bandwidth you have over the network.
-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Stéphane Guedon]

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On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane
> Guedon
> 
> did opine thusly:
> > anyone use autofs to manage mounting of nfs on a laptop ?
> 
> Is this mounting a share from an nfs server onto a laptop?
> 
> > Is it fluent,
> > easy to use ?
> 
> It's NFS. The words "nfs" and "fluent, easy to use" do not belong in the
> same sentence unless there's a "not" in the middle.
> 
> The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices that
> can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that do not
> change much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to solve.
> 
> > How many shares maximum ?
> 
> From a server? Hundreds, with ease. NFS is not the bottleneck, your shares
> are limited by how much bandwidth you have over the network.

Ok, it's a beginning.. :-) thank you !

Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda (which has 
a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home networking), I know nothing 
that is fit for network file-sharing for laptop (the laptop isn't the server of 
course).

I search a solution for that since years !

-- 
Stéphane Guedon
page web : http://www.22decembre.eu/
carte de visite : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.vcf
clé publique gpg : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.asc

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Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Friday 03 June 2011 13:37:54 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane
> > Guedon
> > 
> > did opine thusly:
> > > anyone use autofs to manage mounting of nfs on a laptop ?
> > 
> > Is this mounting a share from an nfs server onto a laptop?
> > 
> > > Is it fluent,
> > > easy to use ?
> > 
> > It's NFS. The words "nfs" and "fluent, easy to use" do not belong in the
> > same sentence unless there's a "not" in the middle.
> > 
> > The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices
> > that can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that
> > do not change much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to
> > solve.
> > 
> > > How many shares maximum ?
> > 
> > From a server? Hundreds, with ease. NFS is not the bottleneck, your
> > shares are limited by how much bandwidth you have over the network.
> 
> Ok, it's a beginning.. :-) thank you !
> 
> Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda (which
> has a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home networking), I know
> nothing that is fit for network file-sharing for laptop (the laptop isn't
> the server of course).
> 
> I search a solution for that since years !

samba?

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 14:18 on Friday 03 June 2011, Volker Armin 
Hemmann did opine thusly:

> On Friday 03 June 2011 13:37:54 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> > On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane
> > > Guedon
> > > 
> > > did opine thusly:
> > > > anyone use autofs to manage mounting of nfs on a laptop ?
> > > 
> > > Is this mounting a share from an nfs server onto a laptop?
> > > 
> > > > Is it fluent,
> > > > easy to use ?
> > > 
> > > It's NFS. The words "nfs" and "fluent, easy to use" do not belong in
> > > the same sentence unless there's a "not" in the middle.
> > > 
> > > The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices
> > > that can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that
> > > do not change much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to
> > > solve.
> > > 
> > > > How many shares maximum ?
> > > 
> > > From a server? Hundreds, with ease. NFS is not the bottleneck, your
> > > shares are limited by how much bandwidth you have over the network.
> > 
> > Ok, it's a beginning.. :-) thank you !
> > 
> > Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda
> > (which has a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home networking),
> > I know nothing that is fit for network file-sharing for laptop (the
> > laptop isn't the server of course).
> > 
> > I search a solution for that since years !
> 
> samba?

+1

Samba works nicely for ad-hoc connections, the kind of thing Windows clients 
would do. And it's a lot more tolerant of connections going away than NFS.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 03.06.2011 14:25, schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 14:18 on Friday 03 June 2011, Volker Armin 
> Hemmann did opine thusly:
> 
>> On Friday 03 June 2011 13:37:54 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
>>> On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>>> Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane
>>>> Guedon
>>>>
>>>> did opine thusly:
[...]
>>>>
>>>> The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices
>>>> that can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that
>>>> do not change much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to
>>>> solve.
[...]
>>>
>>> Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda
>>> (which has a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home networking),
>>> I know nothing that is fit for network file-sharing for laptop (the
>>> laptop isn't the server of course).
>>>
>>> I search a solution for that since years !
>>
>> samba?
> 
> +1
> 
> Samba works nicely for ad-hoc connections, the kind of thing Windows clients 
> would do. And it's a lot more tolerant of connections going away than NFS.
> 
> 

I always was under the impression that NFS is more fault-tolerant on the
network because of its usage of stateless UDP connections whereas CIFS
usually freezes when the connection is lost. In the end, both issue an
IO error, usually crashing an unprepared application. So, in which
regard performs CIFS better with interrupted connections?

That being said, I always use NFS over TCP because of performance issues
with UDP and wireless LAN.

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 14:57 on Friday 03 June 2011, Florian Philipp 
did opine thusly:

> Am 03.06.2011 14:25, schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 14:18 on Friday 03 June 2011, Volker
> > Armin
> > 
> > Hemmann did opine thusly:
> >> On Friday 03 June 2011 13:37:54 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> >>> On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >>>> Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane
> >>>> Guedon
> 
> >>>> did opine thusly:
> [...]
> 
> >>>> The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices
> >>>> that can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that
> >>>> do not change much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to
> >>>> solve.
> 
> [...]
> 
> >>> Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda
> >>> (which has a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home
> >>> networking), I know nothing that is fit for network file-sharing for
> >>> laptop (the laptop isn't the server of course).
> >>> 
> >>> I search a solution for that since years !
> >> 
> >> samba?
> > 
> > +1
> > 
> > Samba works nicely for ad-hoc connections, the kind of thing Windows
> > clients would do. And it's a lot more tolerant of connections going away
> > than NFS.
> 
> I always was under the impression that NFS is more fault-tolerant on the
> network because of its usage of stateless UDP connections whereas CIFS
> usually freezes when the connection is lost. In the end, both issue an
> IO error, usually crashing an unprepared application. So, in which
> regard performs CIFS better with interrupted connections?

I find that when an NFS server disappears from the client's view, the only 
thing that brings it back is making the server visible again. True, there are 
options that modify this behaviour (hard, soft) but they come with their own 
risks as described in the man page.

Trying to unmount an NFS mount with no server is painful, and all too easy to 
do if you carry your laptop to a meeting room in another building.

CIFS can usually at least be killed (depending on how it's mounted) - a 
kioslave in konqueror for example is easy to kill.

Neither option is well suited for laptops IMO but on balance CIFS tends to be 
easier for the user to deal with.

> That being said, I always use NFS over TCP because of performance issues
> with UDP and wireless LAN.

Smart move. I genuinely feel that the use-case for NFS over UDP has largely 
gone away in these modern times and TCP is the better choice for normal use.

OT, but the same applies to auth systems i.e. tacacs vs radius

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[William Kenworthy]

On Fri, 2011-06-03 at 14:57 +0200, Florian Philipp wrote:
> Am 03.06.2011 14:25, schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 14:18 on Friday 03 June 2011, Volker Armin 
> > Hemmann did opine thusly:
> > 
> >> On Friday 03 June 2011 13:37:54 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> >>> On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >>>> Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011, Stéphane
> >>>> Guedon
> >>>>
> >>>> did opine thusly:
> [...]
> >>>>
> >>>> The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other devices
> >>>> that can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for secure LANs that
> >>>> do not change much, and laptops present issues that are not easy to
> >>>> solve.
> [...]
> >>>
> >>> Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda
> >>> (which has a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home networking),
> >>> I know nothing that is fit for network file-sharing for laptop (the
> >>> laptop isn't the server of course).
> >>>
> >>> I search a solution for that since years !
> >>
> >> samba?
> > 
> > +1
> > 
> > Samba works nicely for ad-hoc connections, the kind of thing Windows clients 
> > would do. And it's a lot more tolerant of connections going away than NFS.
> > 
> > 
> 
> I always was under the impression that NFS is more fault-tolerant on the
> network because of its usage of stateless UDP connections whereas CIFS
> usually freezes when the connection is lost. In the end, both issue an
> IO error, usually crashing an unprepared application. So, in which
> regard performs CIFS better with interrupted connections?
> 
> That being said, I always use NFS over TCP because of performance issues
> with UDP and wireless LAN.
> 
> Regards,
> Florian Philipp
> 

No, its ok in a fixed network but you get wierd issues like clients
hanging on shutdown because the NFS server goes away first, and its an
administrative pita when it stops working - could be firewall, something
missed in a new kernel etc.

Ive been using it for mythtv and diskless systems (NFS over TCP) for
quite awhile and its a fight every few months to find out why host x
syuddenly doesnt want to play.  But otherwise works well use wise in a
controlled environment.

Laptops are a whole different matter though - you might be better off
side stepping if its only looking at media by looking into streaming
rather than storage mapping.  Otherwise, Samba is probably the next
best.

BillK


-- 
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>
Home in Perth!

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Stéphane Guedon]

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On Saturday 04 June 2011 02:40:12 William Kenworthy wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-06-03 at 14:57 +0200, Florian Philipp wrote:
> > Am 03.06.2011 14:25, schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> > > Apparently, though unproven, at 14:18 on Friday 03 June 2011, Volker
> > > Armin
> > > 
> > > Hemmann did opine thusly:
> > >> On Friday 03 June 2011 13:37:54 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> > >>> On Friday 03 June 2011 12:55:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > >>>> Apparently, though unproven, at 12:44 on Friday 03 June 2011,
> > >>>> Stéphane Guedon
> > 
> > >>>> did opine thusly:
> > [...]
> > 
> > >>>> The point is that NFS was not designed with laptops and other
> > >>>> devices that can be disconnected in mind. It was designed for
> > >>>> secure LANs that do not change much, and laptops present issues
> > >>>> that are not easy to solve.
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > >>> Nfs hasn't been designed for laptop, it's ok. But, appart from coda
> > >>> (which has a file size limit of 1 giga, so, useless in home
> > >>> networking), I know nothing that is fit for network file-sharing for
> > >>> laptop (the laptop isn't the server of course).
> > >>> 
> > >>> I search a solution for that since years !
> > >> 
> > >> samba?
> > > 
> > > +1
> > > 
> > > Samba works nicely for ad-hoc connections, the kind of thing Windows
> > > clients would do. And it's a lot more tolerant of connections going
> > > away than NFS.
> > 
> > I always was under the impression that NFS is more fault-tolerant on the
> > network because of its usage of stateless UDP connections whereas CIFS
> > usually freezes when the connection is lost. In the end, both issue an
> > IO error, usually crashing an unprepared application. So, in which
> > regard performs CIFS better with interrupted connections?
> > 
> > That being said, I always use NFS over TCP because of performance issues
> > with UDP and wireless LAN.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Florian Philipp
> 
> No, its ok in a fixed network but you get wierd issues like clients
> hanging on shutdown because the NFS server goes away first, and its an
> administrative pita when it stops working - could be firewall, something
> missed in a new kernel etc.
> 
> Ive been using it for mythtv and diskless systems (NFS over TCP) for
> quite awhile and its a fight every few months to find out why host x
> syuddenly doesnt want to play.  But otherwise works well use wise in a
> controlled environment.
> 
> Laptops are a whole different matter though - you might be better off
> side stepping if its only looking at media by looking into streaming
> rather than storage mapping.  Otherwise, Samba is probably the next
> best.
> 
> BillK

In home network, you share many types of files ! The first I think is DVD iso, 
which is huge (too large to go through coda) and not streamable... (but I 
admit it's not the best exemple !)

You share also documents (tax papers scans, ilness and doctors 
certificates...). And I share first of all Portage tree and distfiles !

Medias can be streamed, but not that !

-- 
Stéphane Guedon
page web : http://www.22decembre.eu/
carte de visite : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.vcf
clé publique gpg : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.asc

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Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Stroller]

On 4 June 2011, at 16:10, Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> ...
> In home network, you share many types of files ! The first I think is DVD iso, 
> which is huge (too large to go through coda) and not streamable... (but I 
> admit it's not the best exemple !)

I'm not sure what coda is, but I "stream" DVD .iso files over Samba to my set-top-box. [1] [2]

DVD .iso files are no longer considered "huge". There are now people who rip blu-rays to store them on the NAS - those are each c 50gb.

Stroller.



[1] http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/media-streamers/1281361/ac-ryan-playon-hd-mini
[2] http://www.trustedreviews.com/A-C--Ryan-Playon-HD-Mini_Peripheral_review

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 23:11 on Saturday 04 June 2011, Stroller did 
opine thusly:

> On 4 June 2011, at 16:10, Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> > ...
> > In home network, you share many types of files ! The first I think is DVD
> > iso, which is huge (too large to go through coda) and not streamable...
> > (but I admit it's not the best exemple !)
> 
> I'm not sure what coda is, but I "stream" DVD .iso files over Samba to my
> set-top-box. [1] [2]

coda and andrewfs are the same class of thing - a network connected file 
system. Both claim to deal nicely with becoming disconnected, then will just 
wait for the other end to come back online.

But without the large exposure that NFS and samba already have, support is 
somewhat spotty still.

> DVD .iso files are no longer considered "huge". There are now people who
> rip blu-rays to store them on the NAS - those are each c 50gb.

I have visions of Aunt Tillie trying to do that off a VFAT usb disk using 
Windows..... :-0



-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] autofs

[pk]

On 2011-06-03 12:44, Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> anyone use autofs to manage mounting of nfs on a laptop ? Is it fluent, easy to 

I'm not using any auto-mounters currently but this link may help(?):
http://www.linux-tutorial.info/modules.php?name=MContent&pageid=153

HTH

Best regards

Peter K