suse tpx60s wrote:

> No opinions? I'll try clarify my request.
>
> I have a XP box on which there are 4 drives formatted as NTFS that I
> need to mount on my openSUSE laptop. The XP box is on the same LAN and
> subnet as my openSUSE laptop. At the moment I have a script which I
> manually run to mount these remote filesystems. I'm looking for a way to
> automate this so they mount at boot.
> I know I can just run the script at boot or login but I have a few
> concerns with how thngs are handles in the event of no network
> available.

Well, that's a matter of taste. I don't mount samba shares, just access the
resources via konqueror and smb:// protocol.

But sometines it is usefull to create a static mount point by:

- Editing /etc/fstab and add an entry for your ntfs static mount point
- Going to yast / system / runlevel editor and enable "smbfs" which says is
for "import remote smb/cifs filesystems".

And just try :-)

> - What happens if the path to the filesystem is not avaialble, e.g.
> I'm not connected to the network at the time of booting or login? I'm
> assuming the mount just fails without any further problems.

smbfs script should handle a failure like this at boot time. If cannot
connect with the remote resource, whatever reason, it will just say "smsfs
service.... failed or timeout" and the mount point will not be present once
you login. You can manually mount it later.

> - What happens if I've mounted the remote filesystem and the network
> then fails? Will I get data corruption? What happens to the mounted
> filesystem? Do I need to unmount it? Is there an elegant way to
> automatically have the system handle such events?

The behavior should be same you get when working with a device or resource
that is not available over the network. You just can't access to that
device or if currently working or managing the files, they just become
unaccessible.

> I'm basically looking for the best practice for mounting remote NTFS
> filesystems reliably and safely.

"Test and error" is sometimes a good start point :-)

BTW, I am a bit reluctant with the status of the "ntfs-3g" driver to handle
writing operations. People say is quite safe but I am not so sure about
that :-/

Greetings,

--
Camaleón