[comp.unix.aux] Using NFS from A/UX 2.0.1

mikec@wam.umd.edu (Michael D. Callaghan) (05/28/91)

Does anyone have direct experience using A/UX as an NFS client? I'd like
to hear about the problems encountered.

Thanks,
MikeC

-- 
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Michael D. Callaghan, MDC Designs, University of Maryland
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	- Celibacy is a curable condition -

tony@tui.marcam.dsir.govt.nz (Tony Cooper) (05/28/91)

|> Does anyone have direct experience using A/UX as an NFS client? I'd like
|> to hear about the problems encountered.

I mount two SunOS4.1 disks on my A/UX system and I have never had any problems
whatsoever. They are fast, too, and so trouble free that I think they are
my own disks. I have even had /shlib on them with no problems although I
think that Apple recommend that this not be done. In fact, I have had so
little trouble with mounted disks that even when people said that you could
not compile and run code on them due to a bug, I could. I even built X11R4
on a mounted disk. They only times I have problems is when the Sun disks
are down whereupon A/UX hangs for various operations such as df and getwd.
(Other UNIXs, but not all, do this hanging too).

Don't forget that there is a nfs patch in aux.support.apple.com that is more
recent than A/UX 2.0.1. It fixes the compiling problem that some people had.

|> 	- Celibacy is a curable condition -

A good night in bed cures it.

liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) (05/29/91)

|> Does anyone have direct experience using A/UX as an NFS client? I'd like
|> to hear about the problems encountered.

Where have you been these last few years?

1. A/UX has always had a complete, standard NFS implementation which allows 
the A/UX machine to be both client and server.

2. It works. At QMW we have always used A/UX with very, very heavy reliance on 
NFS and it hasn't let us down: by heavy reliance I mean that no personal files 
are stored on the local disk of our 100+ student A/UX systems, and that 
everyone's home directory is on some NFS fileserver. We run A/UX on machines 
with 40 Meg disks of which 20 Meg is given over to a Mac partition: this 
leaves only room for the bare minimum of A/UX stuff on the local disk, with 
everything else mounted from NFS fileservers.

3. Recent problems with NFS, showing up mostly with compilations on remote 
servers, were due to generic failings in the NFS standard source code as 
licenced from Sun. The revised A/UX NFS driver fixes this.


These days NFS is just part of the furniture for any and every UNIX box: it's 
only when people don't offer it that you should begin to worry.
--

William Roberts                 Internet:  liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
Queen Mary & Westfield College  UUCP:      liam@qmw-dcs.UUCP
Mile End Road                   AppleLink: UK0087
LONDON, E1 4NS, UK              Tel:  +44 71-975 5234 (Fax: +44 81-980 6533)