autofs failing hp9000 to hp3000

[Kevin Liquori_1]

We've had some trouble recently using the legacy automounter mounting some HP3000 (server) filesystems on our HP9000 (client)servers. After discussing this with HP they suggested upgrading to AutoFS. We did this on a test box (L class running 11.0) as well as installing the latest NFS patches. At this point the legacy automounter works fine mounting filesystems from other HP9000 or HP3000 servers. When we switch to AutoFS, however, we can mount HP9000 filesystems but cannot see anything from the HP3000s.

The permissions on /etc/auto_master are: -rw-r--r--
and its contents are:
/net -hosts -nosuid,soft.
We turned on logging and on a failure /var/adm/automount.log shows:
"May 28 14:27:13 (thread 1) MOUNT REQUEST: name=hp3000_name map=-hosts opts=nosuid,soft path=/net
May 28 14:27:13 (thread 1) MOUNT REPLY: status=2".

The version of NFS running on the HP3000 is A.02.06.009.

Any ideas?

TIA . . . Kevin

[Brian Hackley]

Kevin,

The mount reply status=2 is just ERRNO 2 (ENOENT). Something else is happening here, I suspect that the mount request is taking too long to compleete.

Using "-hosts" maps is extremely ineffecient, and results in considerable overhead with automount and AutoFS. Every mount/umount at the default 5 minute time interval of AutoFS checking the mount point results in tearing down/rebuilding the heirarchical structure of the /net directory should there be mounts contained in it.

I would suggest that instead of user the -hosts entry, you instead try to use a direct map for each of the exported file systems from your key NFS Servers. Left the /net -hosts for non-essential servers, or don't use it at all. To create a direct map structure (which is the same in Automount and AutoFS), you
use the following example entry in /etc/auto_master:
/- /etc/auto.direct
or
/- /etc/auto.direct -nosuid
(or whatever options you want to use)

And /etc/auto.direct (permissions 444):
/some-directory/some-mount server:/exported-directory
/some-directory/some-other-mount server2:/export/subdir


If you want unique options for the individual auto.direct entry,
/some-other-dir -soft server3:/export/dir

One last tip, usage of soft mounts should be limited to read-only, non-essential data. The HP NFS manual and NFS experts all agree on that point (O'Reilly NFS book, Callaghan's NFS Illustrated).

Whew! This reply looks confusing, but I hope it helps.

-> Brian Hackley

[Kevin Liquori_1]

I tried the direct map, but when I tried to do an ll on it it came back as unreadable. ?