SUMMARY: showmount -a 'print remote mounts'

From: Tim Clemens, GEA, 8*334-7714 (TRCLEMENS@TACL.dnet.ge.com)
Date: Thu Jun 03 1993 - 10:09:19 CDT


I guess I was looking for a way to see what filesystems on a NFS server are
CURRENTLY being accessed from NFS clients. The 'showmount' command only shows
information about filesystems that were mounted at one time or another. This
information is maintained in /etc/rmtab by the rpc.mountd daemon on the server.

"NFS is by definition stateless". Therefore, the entries in /etc/rmtab on the
NFS server are only removed by an explicit 'umount' command from a NFS client.
A diskless client only executes a 'umount' command during its boot up...not
during its shutdown. When your environment changes as much and as fast as
ours, the /etc/rmtab entries become meaningless as well as the information
from a 'showmount' command.

In addition, any filesystem on a NFS server that has been 'automounted' by a
client will show up in the server's /etc/rmtab. If this remains long enough,
every possible automounted filesystem will show up as mounted to every possible
workstation on the NFS server.

I realize now that this is just another trivial annoyance and thanks for your
time in answering this question.

SUGGUSTIONS:
 - Truncate the file /etc/rmtab just before rebooting a NFS server.
 - Explicitly 'umount' the file filesystem from the client
 - Kill rpc.mountd on the server, edit /etc/rmtab, then restart rpc.mountd

trclemens@tacl.dnet.ge.com
Tim Clemens
Systems Engineer
GE Appliances
Appliance Park 35-1008
Louisville, KY 40225



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