[comp.sys.hp] Does HP-UX 8.0 have an NFS automounter?

tannenba@engr.wisc.edu (Todd Tannenbaum) (05/01/91)

Hi,

I do not yet have HP-UX 8.0, and was wondering if HP-UX 8.0
includes an NFS automounter (i.e. dynamic NFS mounting on demand).

The only NFS automounter for HP-UX that I am currently aware of
is a public domain (i think) program called AMD, and I have heard
that AMD has lots of bugs and other assorted strangeness.  Thus,
I am hoping HP includes an automounter in 8.0.....

Does anyone who already has 8.0 know one way or another?

Thanks much.
--Todd Tannenbaum

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Todd Tannenbaum                    | e-mail: tannenba@engr.wisc.edu
Computer Aided Engineering Center  | Voice Ph: (608) 262-3118
University of Wisconsin-Madison    | Fax Ph: (608) 262-6707

komarnit@tramp.Colorado.EDU (KOMARNITSKY ALEK O) (05/03/91)

In article <1991May1.112644.20929@doug.cae.wisc.edu> tannenba@engr.wisc.edu (Todd Tannenbaum) writes:
>Hi,
>
>I do not yet have HP-UX 8.0, and was wondering if HP-UX 8.0
>includes an NFS automounter (i.e. dynamic NFS mounting on demand).
>
>The only NFS automounter for HP-UX that I am currently aware of
>is a public domain (i think) program called AMD, and I have heard
>that AMD has lots of bugs and other assorted strangeness.  Thus,
>I am hoping HP includes an automounter in 8.0.....
>
>Does anyone who already has 8.0 know one way or another?

Umm. We use AMD in our multi-vendor (Sun, HP, Ultrix, SGI, AIX)
environment and it works great - I don't know how we would get by
without it. It even seems to handle system crashes on both the
client and server side fairly well.

There is one (minor(?)) problem with the current release when 
an NFS server is exporting multiple file systems. AMD will mount
all of the exported file systems, and then after a timeout period, will
attempt to clean up and umount un-used file systems (leaving, of course,
the one that you are using). However, when you go to reference one of
the file systems that has been umounted, AMD doesn't remount it and 
you're left with empty space (well, actually you have an empty directory
that's the mount point on the server). However, the author has informed
me that this is fixed in the next release - I believe he has a Beta
release available on ucb.edu.

I should say that we don't use the more "exotic" features of the automounter,
but it works fine for our simple needs: /nfs/hostname/...
By the way, one fix (spell that k-l-u-d-g-e) to the above problem is to add a
few lines to one of the RC files on the client side that "busies up" the 
filesystems from servers that export more than one.

alek, Dumb MBA Student, University of Colorado

P.S. I'd also like to know if HP plans on including this in 8.x ?!?

stuartj@hpfcse.HP.COM (Stuart Jarriel) (05/22/91)

I have been told that HPUX 8.0 does NOT have automounter.
I have customers in town who  MUST have it, but In general,
is it required or not?  I am trying to get some 
concensus.

Respond by posting or email.  I will summarize.

a3197se.hp.com

ian@rathe.cs.umn.edu (Ian Hogg) (05/24/91)

In article <60008@hpfcse.HP.COM> stuartj@hpfcse.HP.COM (Stuart Jarriel) writes:
>I have been told that HPUX 8.0 does NOT have automounter.
>I have customers in town who  MUST have it, but In general,
>is it required or not?  I am trying to get some 
>concensus.
>
>Respond by posting or email.  I will summarize.
>
>a3197se.hp.com

All I did was looki at the documentation, but there is a freely available
automounter called amd.  Has anyone here tried running it on HP?

-- 
Ian Hogg                        email:  rathe!ian@cs.umn.edu
                                        ...!umn-cs!rathe!ian
Rathe, Inc                              ianhogg@cs.umn.edu
366 Jackson Street              phone:  (612) 225-1401

bruce@ai.mit.edu (Bruce Walton) (05/24/91)

In article <1991May23.170532.7988@rathe.cs.umn.edu> ian@rathe.cs.umn.edu (Ian Hogg) writes:
>In article <60008@hpfcse.HP.COM> stuartj@hpfcse.HP.COM (Stuart Jarriel) writes:
>>I have been told that HPUX 8.0 does NOT have automounter.
>>I have customers in town who  MUST have it, but In general,
>>is it required or not?  I am trying to get some 
>>concensus.
>
>All I did was looki at the documentation, but there is a freely available
>automounter called amd.  Has anyone here tried running it on HP?
>

We have amd running here on HP/UX 7.05.  It can use yellow pages for getting
automount maps, in fact, the manpage says it was "designed as a value-added
replacement for the SunOS 4 automount program".

We still run automount on the suns.  The amd YP maps are maintained by an
awk script which builds them from the automount YP maps.  The amd maps get
regenerated whenever the automount maps change.

A nice solution to the problem, and you don't have to wait for HP/UX to come
up with something similar in 8.0.

			-bruce.





--
Bruce Walton					systems administrator
bruce@ai.mit.edu				MIT artificial intelligence lab
617-253-9667					cambridge, MA

alek@spatial.com ( Alek O. Komarnitsky ) (05/26/91)

In article <1991May23.170532.7988@rathe.cs.umn.edu> ian@rathe.cs.umn.edu (Ian Hogg) writes:
>All I did was looki at the documentation, but there is a freely available
>automounter called amd.  Has anyone here tried running it on HP?

We use amd in our multi-vendor network (DEC, HP, IBM, SGI, Sun) and
it works like a champ (we use the Sun Automounter on those machines).
There is a bug that causes it to "lose" filesystems if more than
one is exported, but one can fix (spell that k-l-u-d-g-e) that, and
the author has assured me that the next release will provide a 
real fix for this (but hey, who needs to worry about multiple
file systems/partitions from HP systems  :-)

FYI: We do not use the more advanced features of amd, but it sound like
both Bruce Walton at MIT and myself are happy users of it.


Alek Komarnitsky                                      303-449-0649
Software Tools Manager, Spatial Technology, Inc.      2425 55th Street, Bldg A
alek@spatial.com                                      Boulder, CO 80301-5704