Planet NAS-5400, User Manual, Page: 143 / 152

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Appendix 3
UNIX Access to NAS Server
One of the purposes for the NFS protocol is to have similar management methods of the remote
file system and local file system. Therefore, they can both use the
“
mount
”
command to mount.
mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s5 /home (local filesystem, Solaris)
mount /dev/hda5 /home (local file system, Linux)
The UNIX administrator will usually set the above-mentioned scripts in /etc/vfstab (Solaris) or
/etc/fstab (Linux, FreeBSD). These settings will automatically execute once the system starts. The
following example shows the contents of a /etc/vfstab (NAS5400 is a NAS/NFS server name).
# Filesystem Mountpoint Type
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 / ufs
/proc /proc proc
NAS5400:/volume1/programs /usr/local nfs
NAS5400:/volume1/homes /home nfs
When there are a lot of UNIX clients in the network, writing NFS file systems into client /etc/vfstab
or /etc/fstab files becomes a complicated task. When the path of one NFS file system changes, or
a new NFS file system is added, the administrator has to change the settings for each UNIX client
one by one.
Using NIS (Network Information Service) is one solution because NIS saves all mount information
in the NIS server. Once NFS clients join the NIS domain, they will be able to use the shared
directories on NFS servers through the function of
“
automount
”
instead of modifying /etc/vfstab or
/etc/fstab individually. Most UNIX systems (Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD etc.) can be configured as an
NIS server.
The following description is based on the settings on a Solaris NIS server.
Master map is the database of the mount information on the NIS server. Before building this
database, administrators must edit the pure text file /etc/auto_master as follows.
Master map: /etc/auto_master
#Directory Map Mount options