First I should thank everybody for their helpful and prompt
responses. I got so many it has taken me a while to get to writing
this summary.
The majority opinion was that nfs mounting of /usr is not such
a good idea, either because of boot-time hassles (the problem I had)
or single-user mode difficulties. The consensus was that disk space
was cheap enough to make it simpler to mount /usr locally. In fact
the network dependance induced by nfs mounting a bin directory made at
least one responder choose not to mount even /usr/local remotely:
"We've determined, in our facility, that the best answer for maintaining
systems is not to share executables with NFS, but to use RDist to
periodically keep "remote" copies up to date. I can send you a URL for
RDist if you'd like."
"There were two reasons we made this decision. First, we control our
systems completely, but have less control over our network, therefore
working to minimize routine load on our network provided a better payback
for making small investments in local hard disk than dealing with getting
the network updated. Second, again because we don't have complete control
over the network we felt that it made sense to have redundant data on our
systems - and, as I said, we therefore have better control."
(K. M. Peterson <KMP_at_wi.mit.edu>)
I'm afraid I do need to mount /usr/local but will refrain from
mounting /usr (though after all the compilers are installed I will be
scrounging for space).
I got several replies that suggested that mounting /usr
remotely is straightforward and the following represents the general
idea:
"This is quite do'able. I NFS export /usr from our main Alpha server to 40+
Alpha workstations. /usr is exported read-only also. There was a good
posting about booting from a shared /usr in the alpha-managers list a few
years back, I used this as a basis. You have to move some stuff from /usr
on the network drive to the local disc... silly things like the route
daemon and stuff which are in /usr/ rather than /sbin! The other problem
is that since the shared libs are in /usr/shlib any executable which
requires them can only be run AFTER /usr/ is mounted, use "odump -Dl file"
to see what libraries are particular program uses. Binaries in /sbin/ are
supposed to be "stand-alone" and run without /usr. Go thru each of the
boot/rc scripts that are run before NFS starts, you'll also need to
reorder the scripts so that NFS starts earlier in the boot sequence.
Anyhow search the Alpha-OSF-Managers list for "dataless" or "NFS usr" and
you should find the hints you'll need."
(Andrew Leahy <A.Leahy_at_st.nepean.uws.edu.au>)
Anyway, thanks again for all the useful replies!
-Adam
Received on Mon Jan 26 1998 - 19:45:59 NZDT