NFS mount issue

[Darryl Moore]

mcr at simtone.net wrote:
> 
>     Darryl> I'm trying to put together a setup for laptops such that
>     Darryl> when the laptop is connected to the network the network
>     Darryl> mounted NFS /home directory will appear, but when the laptop
>     Darryl> is away from the network, the local /home directory will
>     Darryl> appear.
> 
> Okay, but it's gonna be a major pain.
> Instead, I strongly suggest that you create new mount /net/nethome/foo
> or something, and put some symlinks in /home that point there.  
> 

The problem with this approach is that they will not be able to log on
from different machines and keep the same configuration settings.
Desktop directory, panel layout, etc. The laptop will have one look and
feel, and all the other workstations will have something different.

>From my experience laptop workers still use their machines while on the
network most of the time, but do have the ability to take them home or
on the road as well.

I figured presenting them with the same common interface as on all other
network workstations, but giving them a link to local storage for when
they need to take files with them, would be the best approach.

This way the default will be for files to remain on the NFS server where
they will be backed up regularly. However if they follow a nautilus
bookmark to local storage they can copy files to take with them, and
when they reboot the machine at home those files will be in the new home
directory.

Another approach might be to have a /home/user directory which is mostly
read only with a link to local storage area. This way, when on the
network, the NFS /home could be mounted on top of the local /home
without making local data files inaccessible. It also means I could
easily use autofs to kill the NFS mount in the more than likely event
that the laptop is put into sleep mode at the office and resumed when
away from the network.

> There are few to no mechanisms to synchronize things like GNOME
> settings, etc. between the places, so those things likely remain on your
> local /home.  I suggest an hourly cron job that wakes up, sees if
> /net/nethome/foo/backups exists, and copies/rsync's /home/foo to it.
> 

I wasn't actually thinking about synchronizing these things, and the
approach I was looking at was to try to avoid having to do just that.


>     Darryl> I tried having two seperate home directories specified in
>     Darryl> the authentication system. I.E. /home/user in the network
>     Darryl> LDAP server, but /local_home/user in the laptop passwd
> 
>   Two home directories are just not supported.
> 
>     Darryl> This should move the local home tree to /home where we want
>     Darryl> to see it when there is no network. It will also move
>     Darryl> server:/export/home to the same place when the network is
>     Darryl> present. This way (hopefully) preference is given to the
>     Darryl> server home directory, but the local home directory will
>     Darryl> still be accessible.
> 
>   It will confuse users and piss them off because they won't be able to
> find things.

That is an interesting comment, because part of the goal was to make
things easier to find.