[comp.unix.ultrix] DEC's automounter, amd

iglesias@draco.acs.uci.edu (Mike Iglesias) (02/09/91)

We're using the automounter that comes with Ultrix 4.1 pretty heavily
on 12 DECstation 5000s.  Occasionally, the automounter refuses to
mount a partition, and recently, has been getting a "bus error" and
the system has to be rebooted to become usable again.  Are other people
seeing problems like these under Ultrix 4.1?

I've been looking a little bit at amd, the improved automounter available
via anonymous ftp from usc.edu.  Does it work under Ultrix 4.1?  The
documentation mentions VAX Ultrix, but not RISC Ultrix.


Thanks,

Mike Iglesias
University of California, Irvine
Internet:    iglesias@draco.acs.uci.edu
BITNET:      iglesias@uci
uucp:        ...!ucbvax!ucivax!iglesias

fingerhu@ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut) (02/09/91)

The DEC automounter caused us weird problems: we were unable to mount
directories that were exported from NeXTs and and 750 running 4.3+NFS.
It finally turns out that DEC's automounter had to be compiled with a
-DOLDMOUNT.  Many thanks to our local DEC support who let me glance at
the sources, where I found this.  Now it works fine.

Whatever this is, it means that DEC changed the protocol (as they did
for talk) without mentioning it anywhere accessible to mortal users
without sources, and that in order to be compatible with the rest of the
world, you have to go to the so called "old" version.

brian@cimage.com (Brian Kelley) (02/12/91)

In article <27B32C45.6949@orion.oac.uci.edu> iglesias@draco.acs.uci.edu (Mike Iglesias) writes:
>We're using the automounter that comes with Ultrix 4.1 pretty heavily
>on 12 DECstation 5000s.  Occasionally, the automounter refuses to
>mount a partition, and recently, has been getting a "bus error" and
>the system has to be rebooted to become usable again.  Are other people
>seeing problems like these under Ultrix 4.1?

After having the automounter in 4.1 die for no apparent reason a couple of 
times, I have come to the conclusion that it seems flakey.  We run the same
automount maps and setup on all of our hosts and rarely have problems.

I called DEC.  The software support person I spoke with had me look at the
object modules dates in my version of automount.  All of the modules are
dated 4/21/90 or earlier. The date on the executable is August '90.  The most
recent patched version for 4.0 he had was dated October '90.  There are no
new versions for 4.1.  He is sending us a copy of the patched 4.0 version to
try.  I don't like that idea a whole lot, but it seems the version he is 
sending us is more recent than the one we are running.  I have a core dump
from the automounter I'm going to try and get them to look at.  Any further
thoughts or suggestions (before I throw away vendor supplied automounters 
forever and go with AMD)?


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brian@cimage.com