fstab vs autofs

Timothy Murphy gayleard at eircom.net
Sat Nov 13 00:33:50 UTC 2010


Tim wrote:

>> What exactly is the advantage of using autofs
>> over an entry or entries in /etc/fstab ?
> 
> Autofs only mounts the device when you/something requests access to the
> mount point.  fstab will try mounting it at boot time, unless you add a
> noauto parameter.  It's somewhat easier to add non-default options to
> fstab file, than tuning autofs to your requirements.  Always-mounted
> network shares can be a problem if they're not reachable when you boot
> up.

What exactly is the outcome if the remote host cannot be mounted?
It seemed from what I read that there should just be a delay (timeout)
of 60 seconds; but I recall a much longer delay in practice.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland



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