On Saturday 09 September 2006 21:43, Wade Jones wrote:

On Saturday 09 September 2006 11:48, Primm wrote: I want to serve /home via nfs from the server and mount it on /home on the client but yast doesn't let me. I've tried editing out the /home entry in /etc/fstab but then the client won't boot and takes me into repair mode whereupon I replace the /etc/fstab line and all is well again.

Must I delete the /home partition on the client to procede with what I want to do? Are there any simple alternatives?

Steve.

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No. If mounting /home via nfs, there is no need to have a separate home partition, but there must be a /home directory in the clients root file system to provide the mount point.

Yes. Don't use YAST.

Put the correct entry in /etc/fstab: server:/home /home nfs defaults 0 0 after making sure that the account uids are the same on the server and the client, either by manually matching, or by using NIS.

p.s. if the mount fails, users cannot login, because /home/username is missing, but root can still login to fix the problem, there is no need to go to repair mode.

Thanks. The problem is that /home isn't in the root filesystem. It has its own partition. Will I have to backup and delete the /home partition and reformat so that /home is not a separate partition?

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 06:16 pm, Primm wrote:

On Saturday 09 September 2006 21:43, Wade Jones wrote:

...

On Saturday 09 September 2006 11:48, Primm wrote: I want to serve /home via nfs from the server and mount it on /home on the client but yast doesn't let me. I've tried editing out the /home entry in /etc/fstab but then the client won't boot and takes me into repair mode whereupon I replace the /etc/fstab line and all is well again.

Let's re-cap a bit. Originally did the client have an fstab with a line something like this? /dev/hda8 /home reiserfs nosuid,exec,user_xattr 1 2 Remember to back fstab up as /etc/fstab.old ! Also the server held the home partition you wanted, had nfsserver and portmap running, ports open, and /etc/exports set up so you could do root> mount -t nfs server:/home /mnt and it would work, that is you could ls and cat the files in /mnt ?? Don't go beyond this point till you can! One way forward (by re-booting) Once that worked you could make a directory /old_home and change fstab to: /dev/hda8 /old_home reiserfs nosuid,exec,user_xattr 1 2 server:/home /home nfs rw,nosuid 0 0 Rebooting should get you past rescue mode, but your account may not work yet as it's home directory may not be there. You should be able to log in as root. (home=/root) Alternatively logging into the client in its original state as root should leave the /home partition un-used (YMMV) so you should be able to unmount it by: root> umount /home If it says it's busy, who else is on and what daemons are running? Kick them off or kill them (respectively, be sure not to confuse daemons with users, there are laws about what you can do to users) Make the /old_home directory and change fstab to mount that partition there. root> mount /old_home With /home still unmounted you should just see an empty directory. You should be able to mount the server's home by hand. see above. umount it add the line to fstab and try just root> mount /home Mounts? Good, umount it again. root> /etc/init.d/nfs start Mounted again? Good, make it permanent root> insserv nfs To get the stuff you wanted copied across use rsync. michaelj -- Michael James michael.james@csiro.au System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040 CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166 No matter how much you pay for software, you always get less than you hoped. Unless you pay nothing, then you get more.