NIS, automounting, Solaris and headaches

[pll at lanminds.com]

In a message dated: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 12:47:43 EDT
"Derek D. Martin" said:


>The Linux autofs team does (or at least did) eventually plan to add
>direct map support; however there's no great rush to do so for three
>main reasons:
>
>  - direct maps are hard to implement (required significant kernel
>    changes, IIRC)

If my memory buffers aren't too corrupt from just coming home from 
vacation, the problem lies in the VFS code which will need some very 
significant work to implement direct maps.  The big problem is that 
they need to muck with inodes and the like, which is (for some reason 
I don't remember) not an issue for indirect maps (I think because 
they're only dealing with file handles and symlinks?).

>  - you can generally achieve the same effect with indirect maps

Usually, however, there are some times when you just want a direct 
map because you can't get what you need from indirect maps.  For 
instance, a direct map for home dirs would allow you to 'cd' to /
homes and then do an 'ls' to see everyone's homedir.  Indirect maps 
hide everything until it's mounted, direct maps mount everything at 
once.  This is part of where the slight performance hit comes from 
with direct maps.

>  - indirect maps are better

'better' is a subjective term, but in general, yes :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
--
	It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
   but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.

	 If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!