Re: [PATCH 0/7] Permit filesystem local caching and NFS superblock sharing [try #13]

[Ian Kent <raven@themaw.net>]

On Tue, 2006-09-05 at 08:47 -0400, Trond Myklebust wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-09-05 at 10:57 +0100, David Howells wrote:
> > Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no> wrote:
> > 
> > > Why the hell is it doing a mkdir in the first place?
> > 
> > I think the problems it is solving are these:
> > 
> >  (1) What happens if "/" is _not_ exported?
> > 
> >  (2) What happens if some intermediate directory (say "/usr") is not
> >      accessible?
> > 
> > 
> > In the first case, the automounter just makes "usr" and "usr/src", say, in the
> > autofs filesystem, and then mounts server:/usr/src on that.
> 
> That is fine. As long as it is doing so in the _autofs_ filesystem. A
> call to 'stat()' should suffice to tell if this is the case.
> 
> > In the second case, the automounter relies on NFS letting it make intervening
> > directories it couldn't otherwise access to span the gap between "/" and
> > "src".
> 
> If the directory isn't accessible, then autofs shouldn't be trying to
> override that. It certainly shouldn't be doing so by trying to create
> the directory.
> 

In the case above the directory is in the autofs filesystem and so needs
to be created.

Ian