In article <1994Feb24.012944.23664@Mr-Hyde.aoc.nrao.edu> rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner) writes:
>In article <1994Feb22.204835.19885@nlm.nih.gov> neve@nlm.nih.gov writes:
>>
>>In response to the question, "Can one automount /var/mail?", most
>>folks just said that the kosher way to do it is in the vfstab. (One person
>>was against any NFS-mounting of /var/mail at all, since file locking
>>was felt to be so unrealiable under NFS.)
>
>One way to reduce the file locking issue (though it's never caused us any
>problems) is to have all mail sent to the clients redirected to the /var/mail
>server for delivery.
>
>>But in response to my complaint that when I NFS-mounted /var/mail
>>from my vfstab it hung the system at boot time if the mailhost was down,
>>most folks said try the "bg" mount option. Well, I had tried the "bg" option
>>previously and it did not help.
>
>Try it again, it does work. Perhaps you just didn't wait long enough; it
>takes a minute or so to time out, depending whether you've tweaked any other
>parameters in the mount options. But unless something bizarre has broken, it
>definitely works. Also, if your mailhost is the same server that provides
>other filesystems, you may be getting hung up on those instead. As a rule
>of thumb, always put the bg option on any filesystems that aren't crucial
>to the boot process.
>
>>(Would it matter if I tried "bg" without also using "intr"?)
>
>No, they aren't related at all. "bg" handles timeouts at mount time, "intr"
>allows you to control-C during regular access of an already-mounted NFS disk
>after the server has gone down. That takes time to come back, too.
>
>You might want to read the sections in the manuals on the meaning and
>behavior of all the different options before you start diddling with them.
>It would help you to understand what they are for.
Just as an addition to what Ruth said: adding "noac", no attribute caching, to
the nfs-mount options of the /var/mail may safe you some headaches, too.
-- Wolfgang Wetz, Systems Manager, IS 6.3 (Unix Systems Services) *** CIBA, R-1045.P.24, P.O.Box, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland *** E-mail: wwtz@chbs.ciba.com - Phone: +4161 697 54 25 - Fax: +4161 697 87 72
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