[vox-tech] NFS Mount Points

[Charles Polisher]

Jim Angstadt wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> [ this is a re-transmit.  I burped on the first
> one. sorry of any inconvenience. ]
> 
> I've been learning nfs on my home network.  
> 
> A Red Hat 9.0 box exports /home/ja just fine.  RH
> 8.0 and 7.2 boxes can mount the export.  All dirs
> under /home/ja, and the files within the
> subordinate dirs looks fine.
> 
> But, I'm having problems with the RH 8 and RH 7.2
> desktops under X.  I think the mounting has
> overlayed all the dot files and produced strange
> results.
> 
> I could export each sub-dir and then mount each
> sub-dir so that I don't step on the dot files.  I
> might not need to do that for all sub-dirs, so
> maybe just a few, like /home/ja/bin,
> /home/ja/temp, /home/ja/etc, and so forth.
> 
> Is this the way that most people do it?  Is there
> a better way?

That's precisely what is happening, and your solution is 
the way to go.

Mounting a directory 'hides' the directory it mounts on.
Usually, the mount point is an empty directory so the hiding
isn't obvious -- since there are no files.

Mounting a level below, such as /home/ja/bin does an end-run
around the problem, unless you've already got a /home/ja/bin, in
which case the same problem happens, just one level down. Could
maybe do:  /mnt/nfs/hostname1, /mnt/nfs/hostname2, etc., and then
in your home dir, symbolic links, "ln -s /mnt/nfs/hostname1 foo"
now when you "cd /home/ja/foo" your files are all there.

My preference for the 'dot files': I keep _one_ home dir with my
custom, jazzed-up .bashrc, .bash_profile, Xcolors,
.Xdefaults,.Xmodmap, & so on and so forth... then link my other
home dirs' dot-files into that 'master' set.

That way I always have my settings with me.  Even though I keep
several accounts, eg one for building KDE, another for building
GCC, and so on. Makes the .history easier to follow when things
get off-track.

-- 
Algol 60 was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but
also on nearly all its successors.          -- C. A. R. Hoare