basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[Jerzy Jalocha N]

Hi, I am trying to set-up the following (simple?) configuration:
 * one server which has a mounted partition (/shared) exported with
NFS. This holds some files (office, etc) which will be shared by all
users.
 * a few (4) clients which should autofs this partition as '/shared'.

I am able to manually mount the partition on the clients:
 $ sudo mount 192.168.1.20:/shared /shared
And I am able to mount with fstab. (That's how it's running now.)

But I am unable to automount. Whatever the combinations of options I
try ('ls /shared/', or 'ls /shared/subdir', or 'cd /shared : ls'), it
shows nothing.

I guess, It has to do with the combination of
mounting/exporting/autofs options, but I don't really know how to
debug this part.

This is how I've set it up right now:

 * server:/etc/fstab
 /dev/sdb1 /shared ext3 rw,sync,suid,nodev,exec,auto,nouser 0 3

 * server:/etc/exports
 /shared 192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)

 * client:/etc/auto.master
 shared 192.168.1.20:/shared --ghost --timeout=60

 * client:/etc/auto.shared
 shared  fstype=nfs,rw,sync,soft,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192 192.168.1.20:/shared

Everytime I change some configuration file, I restart the necessary
services. (/etc/init.d/xxx restart). When testing autofs, I remove the
entry from fstab.


The only debugging information I know of:

 $ sudo /etc/init.d/autofs status
 Configured Mount Points:
 ------------------------
 /usr/sbin/automount --timeout=300 /net program /etc/auto.net

 Active Mount Points:
 --------------------
 /usr/sbin/automount --pid-file=/var/run/autofs/_shared.pid
--timeout=60 --ghost /shared file /etc/auto.shared


And '/proc/mounts' while autofs is running:
 automount(pid8181) /shared autofs
rw,fd=4,pgrp=8181,timeout=60,minproto=2,maxproto=4,indirect 0 0


I've tried all possible combinations of options, and I've been working
on this for several weeks now, without success. I'm really a noob, but
I've read everything I could find, including the manual pages of
mount, exports, nfs, fstab, the excellent Redhat reference guide, and
forums. I've also asked for help on two forums without success so far:
 * from post 19 onwards:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/small-linux-only-network-607346/page2.html
 * http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=646572

I am trying really hard to understand what I'm doing, and to learn as
much as possible, but I'm really stuck here. Could anyone with more
experience please guide me with this?

Thanks!
-Jerzy

Re: basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[Jeff Moyer]

"Jerzy Jalocha N" <jjalocha@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi, I am trying to set-up the following (simple?) configuration:
>  * one server which has a mounted partition (/shared) exported with
> NFS. This holds some files (office, etc) which will be shared by all
> users.
>  * a few (4) clients which should autofs this partition as '/shared'.
>
> I am able to manually mount the partition on the clients:
>  $ sudo mount 192.168.1.20:/shared /shared
> And I am able to mount with fstab. (That's how it's running now.)
>
> But I am unable to automount. Whatever the combinations of options I
> try ('ls /shared/', or 'ls /shared/subdir', or 'cd /shared : ls'), it
> shows nothing.
>
> I guess, It has to do with the combination of
> mounting/exporting/autofs options, but I don't really know how to
> debug this part.
>
> This is how I've set it up right now:
>
>  * server:/etc/fstab
>  /dev/sdb1 /shared ext3 rw,sync,suid,nodev,exec,auto,nouser 0 3
>
>  * server:/etc/exports
>  /shared 192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)
>
>  * client:/etc/auto.master
>  shared 192.168.1.20:/shared --ghost --timeout=60

Try:

auto.master:
/shared	/etc/auto.shared

/etc/auto.shared:
*	-hard,intr	192.168.1.20:/shared/&

Cheers,

Jeff

Re: basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[Jerzy Jalocha N]

> Try:
>
> auto.master:
> /shared /etc/auto.shared
>
> /etc/auto.shared:
> *       -hard,intr      192.168.1.20:/shared/&

Thanks, Jeff, but sorry, that doesn't work. It's one of the first
settings I had. Tried it again now, but without success. 'ls' just
shows nothing, even with 'cd /shared'.

Any other ideas?

Re: basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[Jeff Moyer]

"Jerzy Jalocha N" <jjalocha@gmail.com> writes:

>> Try:
>>
>> auto.master:
>> /shared /etc/auto.shared
>>
>> /etc/auto.shared:
>> *       -hard,intr      192.168.1.20:/shared/&
>
> Thanks, Jeff, but sorry, that doesn't work. It's one of the first
> settings I had. Tried it again now, but without success. 'ls' just
> shows nothing, even with 'cd /shared'.
>
> Any other ideas?

Of course it shows nothing.  What directories exist under /shared on
the server?  Try to cd to one of those.

If you want the directory names to appear in a listing of /shared,
then you would have to have a separate key in the auto.shared map for
each of the directories (instead of using the wildcard key).

-Jeff

Re: basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[Jerzy Jalocha N]

> Of course it shows nothing.  What directories exist under /shared on
> the server?  Try to cd to one of those.

Sorry, I am not very clear what I should expect from autofs, so I
didn't post everything I've tested. But I've also tried to show the
contents of a sub-directory without success:
 $ ls /shared/subdir
or
 $ cd /shared/subdir
(for some directory I know that exists.)
But this just takes around 10 min to tell me that there's "No such
file or directory".

> If you want the directory names to appear in a listing of /shared,
> then you would have to have a separate key in the auto.shared map for
> each of the directories (instead of using the wildcard key).

Thanks, this will surely be useful once I get it running. :)

Re: basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[muzzol]

En/na Jerzy Jalocha N ha escrit:
>> Of course it shows nothing.  What directories exist under /shared on
>> the server?  Try to cd to one of those.
> 
> Sorry, I am not very clear what I should expect from autofs, so I
> didn't post everything I've tested. But I've also tried to show the
> contents of a sub-directory without success:
>  $ ls /shared/subdir
> or
>  $ cd /shared/subdir
> (for some directory I know that exists.)
> But this just takes around 10 min to tell me that there's "No such
> file or directory".
> 

try

showmount -e <nfs server>


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Re: basic SOHO NFS/autofs setup for noob help

[Jerzy Jalocha N]

!!!! SOLVED !!!!

The following entry in '/etc/auto.shared' works correctly:
* -fstype=nfs,rw,sync,soft,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192 192.168.1.20:/shared/&

What I had wrong right before, was the IP address.

I had tested this configuration several times before, but since 'cd
/shared' and 'ls /shared' didn't show anything, I thought it wasn't
working. 'ls /shared/subdir' now works perfectly, and probably always
has!

Thank you so much, jeff and muzzol, for your help. You both provided
me the necessary pieces for making this work.

(I'll still read further, to understand it better.)