AutoFS Problems with Laptops

AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Daniel Qarras]

Hi!

This is probably very easy but I can neither figure it out or use
Google.. Anyway, this is what I want to achieve:

Our local network (10.0.0.0) server exports /home and /work directories
and desktop workstations with static IPs can mount them all ok over
NFS. I have a laptop that is using DHCP and autofs. In our local
network autofs mounts work all ok with the config below.

However, when I go out to a different network where those directories
are not available, I would like autofs to figure that out and not to
try mount them and cause jams. What should the script output if those
mounts are available?

I am asking this because I've tried almost everything and I am just
getting bizarre results like directory /var/autofs/(null)/home,
/var/autofs/hithere/work, etc. I want to mount available mounts under
/var/autofs so that they would be /var/autofs/home and /var/autofs/work
but that seems not to work.

The autofs configuration that works perfectly in our local network is
the following.

/etc/auto.master:

/var/autofs /etc/auto.local --timeout=30,--ghost

And /etc/auto.local:

home -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/home
work -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work

But, as said, if I turn auto.local as an executable script that outputs
lines like those I just get those silly results with mounts.

Thanks,

Dan.

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Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Ian Kent]

On Fri, 19 May 2006, Daniel Qarras wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> This is probably very easy but I can neither figure it out or use
> Google.. Anyway, this is what I want to achieve:
> 
> Our local network (10.0.0.0) server exports /home and /work directories
> and desktop workstations with static IPs can mount them all ok over
> NFS. I have a laptop that is using DHCP and autofs. In our local
> network autofs mounts work all ok with the config below.
> 
> However, when I go out to a different network where those directories
> are not available, I would like autofs to figure that out and not to
> try mount them and cause jams. What should the script output if those
> mounts are available?
> 
> I am asking this because I've tried almost everything and I am just
> getting bizarre results like directory /var/autofs/(null)/home,
-------------------------------------------------------^
You'd be running FC5 then.
Can't track this down, we shouldn't be getting mount requests from the 
kernel with no name.

> /var/autofs/hithere/work, etc. I want to mount available mounts under
> /var/autofs so that they would be /var/autofs/home and /var/autofs/work
> but that seems not to work.
> 
> The autofs configuration that works perfectly in our local network is
> the following.
> 
> /etc/auto.master:
> 
> /var/autofs /etc/auto.local --timeout=30,--ghost
> 
> And /etc/auto.local:
> 
> home -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/home
> work -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work

A script should just output the map entry without the key. Like
-fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work

Ian

Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Daniel Qarras]

Hi Ian,

and thanks for your prompt reply.

> > I am asking this because I've tried almost everything and I am just
> > getting bizarre results like directory /var/autofs/(null)/home,
> -------------------------------------------------------^
> You'd be running FC5 then.
> Can't track this down, we shouldn't be getting mount requests from
> the kernel with no name.

Yes, the client is FC5, the server is CentOS-4.4. At the server only
/etc/exports is configured like this:

/home           10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0(rw,no_root_squash,sync)
/work           10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0(rw,no_root_squash,sync)

> A script should just output the map entry without the key. Like
> -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work

Unfortunately, this still creates (null) directory and I can even go to
/var/autofs/whatever to see contents of /work. And if the script
outputs both /work and /home I see only either of them, depending the
order the entries are printed and if they are on the same line or in
two lines.

Do you think I should file a bug to RH Bugzilla about this? It is
currently down so I cannot check whether there is already a report or
two about this issue. I posted this question also to Fedora list but
got no reply.

Thanks.



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Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Ian Kent]

Daniel Qarras wrote:
> Hi Ian,
> 
> and thanks for your prompt reply.
> 
>>> I am asking this because I've tried almost everything and I am just
>>> getting bizarre results like directory /var/autofs/(null)/home,
>> -------------------------------------------------------^
>> You'd be running FC5 then.
>> Can't track this down, we shouldn't be getting mount requests from
>> the kernel with no name.
> 
> Yes, the client is FC5, the server is CentOS-4.4. At the server only
> /etc/exports is configured like this:
> 
> /home           10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0(rw,no_root_squash,sync)
> /work           10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0(rw,no_root_squash,sync)
> 
>> A script should just output the map entry without the key. Like
>> -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work
> 
> Unfortunately, this still creates (null) directory and I can even go to
> /var/autofs/whatever to see contents of /work. And if the script
> outputs both /work and /home I see only either of them, depending the
> order the entries are printed and if they are on the same line or in
> two lines.

That's interesting.

You mean you get a directory "(null)" with no mount?
That shouldn't happen because the the "(null)" key shouldn't be found 
and so shouldn't have a mount entry associated with it. If the script 
needs to return a fail on the lookup it should return 1, 0 on success.

If the script emits a valid mount then it will, of course, mount that.

Ian

Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Daniel Qarras]

> >> A script should just output the map entry without the key. Like
> >> -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work
> > 
> > Unfortunately, this still creates (null) directory and I can even
> go to
> > /var/autofs/whatever to see contents of /work. And if the script
> > outputs both /work and /home I see only either of them, depending
> the
> > order the entries are printed and if they are on the same line or
> in
> > two lines.
> 
> That's interesting.
> 
> You mean you get a directory "(null)" with no mount?
> That shouldn't happen because the the "(null)" key shouldn't be found
> and so shouldn't have a mount entry associated with it. If the script
> needs to return a fail on the lookup it should return 1, 0 on
> success.

The "(null)" directory has contents of /home. I now modified the script
so that it is just like this:

#!/bin/sh
echo -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/home
echo -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work

The (null) directory is visible when I say:

cd /var/autofs
ls

It also gave me access to /home via any directory but not to /work.
meaning that I see contents of /home via these directories:

/var/autofs/home
/var/autofs/test
/var/autofs/work

Cheers,

Dan.



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Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Ian Kent]

On Mon, 22 May 2006, Daniel Qarras wrote:

> > >> A script should just output the map entry without the key. Like
> > >> -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work
> > > 
> > > Unfortunately, this still creates (null) directory and I can even
> > go to
> > > /var/autofs/whatever to see contents of /work. And if the script
> > > outputs both /work and /home I see only either of them, depending
> > the
> > > order the entries are printed and if they are on the same line or
> > in
> > > two lines.
> > 
> > That's interesting.
> > 
> > You mean you get a directory "(null)" with no mount?
> > That shouldn't happen because the the "(null)" key shouldn't be found
> > and so shouldn't have a mount entry associated with it. If the script
> > needs to return a fail on the lookup it should return 1, 0 on
> > success.
> 
> The "(null)" directory has contents of /home. I now modified the script
> so that it is just like this:
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> echo -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/home
> echo -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work

This is not right.

The script is passed the key and you must emit the mount corresponding to 
that key.

Look at auto.net for an example.

Ian

Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Daniel Qarras]

> > #!/bin/sh
> > echo -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/home
> > echo -fstype=nfs,rw,soft,intr 10.0.0.1:/work
> 
> This is not right.
> 
> The script is passed the key and you must emit the mount
> corresponding to that key.
> 
> Look at auto.net for an example.

If I run auto.net from command line with parameter 10.0.0.1 it outputs:

root@laptop# /etc/auto.net 10.0.0.1
-fstype=nfs,hard,intr,nodev,nosuid \
        /home 10.0.0.1:/home \
        /work 10.0.0.1:/work

With any other parameter I just get errors. But when I use auto.net or
my own script to print $1 to /tmp/foo I see that $1 is (null) when
doing ls /var/autofs or home when doind cd /var/autofs/home. Naturally,
nothing gets mounted then.

Too bad that RH Bugzilla is still down and I can't check whether
there's already a bug report about this already.

Thanks.



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Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Jim Carter]

On Fri, 19 May 2006, Daniel Qarras wrote:

> However, when I go out to a different network where those directories
> are not available, I would like autofs to figure that out and not to
> try mount them and cause jams. What should the script output if those
> mounts are available?

If I remember correctly, if the programmatic map prints nothing and exits 
with a nonzero exit code, autofs will realize it has failed and give up. So 
now, how does the script realize that the 10.0.0.x IP address assigned to 
eth0 is not *your* 10.0.0.x, but a customer's net or an Internet cafe 
somewhere?  Perhaps a less obvious choice of subnet could be helpful; this 
is what I do on my own net.

But I'm wondering, what's in server:/home or server:/work?  The ideal is to 
set up the laptop so the NFS mounted directories are not touched without 
voluntary user action, upon which autofs swings into action, and if the 
user forgets that he's not at headquarters, he deserves the 30 second 
timeout (unless the programmatic map script heads off NFS mounting).  It 
isn't going to fly, if the user's home directory is in server:/home/$USER.  
On my own laptop the homedir is local, with backups to the server (and from 
there to removeable media), initiated manually.

If ever you might expand to have two or more NFS servers, it's important to 
use separate subtrees for each, e.g. 
    /var/autofs/server1/home
    /var/autofs/server1/work
    /var/autofs/server2/home
    /var/autofs/server2/work
The reason is like this:  Suppose the mount points were all jumbled 
together, e.g.
    /var/autofs/home1
    /var/autofs/home2
    /var/autofs/work1
    /var/autofs/work2

(UCLA-Mathnet actually made this mistake in the distant past.)  Suppose one 
server is down and the other isn't, and a user hosted on the working server 
tries to log in.  Let's say his homedir is /var/autofs/home2/luser.  
Several "pwd" operations can't be avoided, and it needs to stat all 
memebers of /var/autofs to find out which name goes with the inode 
which is the parent of the homedir.  Frequently it will stat a mount point
from the dead server before getting the right one, and suffer a 30 
second timeout, several times.  Hiss, boo.


James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu  http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)

Re: AutoFS Problems with Laptops

[Daniel Qarras]

> I don't think there's a bugzilla on this yet.

To save list members' nerves I created a report to RH Bugzilla with
minimal steps to reproduce. I think it's best to continue there as this
could be FC5 or luser specific.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=192800

Thanks,

Dan.



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