[comp.sys.sgi] Doing NFS mounts from within C program under IRIX 3.3.1

mosh@VIRGO.MATH.TAU.AC.IL (Moshe Shemesh) (05/28/91)

Hi netlanders,

    I am trying to write a simple program C program under IRIX 3.3.1 which
    needs to do an NFS mount to a remote file system. The problem is that the
    man page of the mount system call (assuming this is the system I should
    use) doesn't mention how this should be done. It only deals with UFS alone
    although it hints that this should be the right system call. It has two
    optional arguments called data and datalen but there is no reference for
    them in the man page.

    Does any of you know how should I do it? My main problem is that I don't
    know what parameters should I pass to the mount (2) system call assuming it
    is the right system call to use.

    I am quite familiar with RPC / XDR stuff So you can mention their details
    in your answer.

    I am not considering:

    system("mount host:/dir /localdir") 

    as an answer. (I got this answer from SGI representatives in ISRAEL. No, it
    wasn't their idea. It came from SGI - USA).

    You can e-mail me directly or answer in this newsgroup. 

Thanks in advance
Moshe Shemesh
Tel-Aviv University
School of Mathematics
Tel-Aviv
ISRAEL

e-mail:
INTERNET: mosh@math.tau.ac.il
BITNET:   mosh@taurus.BITNET

vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) (05/29/91)

In article <2140@ccsg.tau.ac.il>, mosh@VIRGO.MATH.TAU.AC.IL (Moshe Shemesh) writes:
> 
>  Does any of you know how should I do it? My main problem is that I don't
>  know what parameters should I pass to the mount (2) system call assuming it
>  is the right system call to use.
> 
>  I am quite familiar with RPC / XDR stuff So you can mention their details
>  in your answer.
> 
>  I am not considering:
> 
>  system("mount host:/dir /localdir") 
>
>  as an answer. (I got this answer from SGI representatives in ISRAEL. No, it
>  wasn't their idea. It came from SGI - USA).


I don't know who suggested system(3), but that sounds like the right
answer.  Any other solution is likely to stop working in some future
release, as the stuff used to parse /etc/fstab and other things change. 
A bug report complaining that a home grown mount command had stopped
working would meet little sympathy.

There is no plausible speed problem with system(3) applied to an NFS mount,
because the mounting overhead will dominate all else.

The automounter is probably a better alternative to meeting the need, as
opposed to implementing the currently chosen solution.


Vernon Schryver,   vjs@sgi.com.