When using the autofs for mounting a drive on an remote network, connected with vpn, all seems to work nice.
However, after rebooting, and obviously not using the vpn, the problem start.
Many applications seems to be affected.
1: Dolphin just does not start. It actually opens an empty window and freeze
2: Firefox works, but with uploading a file, the browser to select this file, freeze.
Is there anyone who uses autofs in a simular way, and has not always the network connections which are configured, available ?
I hope someone can shine a light on this.
I have seen it twice, on opensuse 64 bit. 11.4 (two different computers with different setup’s)
I can reproduce one bit by activating autofs, and go to the network folder.
When I click on it, dolphin stop working all together. ( when the network drive is unaccessible )
I think the real disaster start, when this network folder is linked to the ‘Places’.
The behaviour you’re experiencing is typical when NFS servers are offline. Some users choose to place explicit mounts in /etc/fstab instead, but of course, then, if they’re not found at boot, they’ll be ignored. (I guess one could use a cron job to execute ‘mount -a’ at regular intervals).
Is there anyone who uses autofs in a simular way, and has not always the network connections which are configured, available ?
This may be worth a try:
Have a look at /etc/auto.master for the entry
/net -hosts
Make sure it is uncommented and add a 15 second (or similar) timeout value
/net -hosts --timeout=15
Does that make a difference to the ‘freeze time’?
Edit: Not sure if you’ll need to restart autofs after that edit, but just in case…
The behaviour you’re experiencing is typical when NFS servers are offline
Actually that is the reason why I want to use the autofs, I expect it to be more dynamic.
The freeze time is actually indefenite. At least longer than my patientce.
pluto:/home/rene # more /etc/auto_sambashare
# sambashare Department directory map for automounter
# Be sure to add the hostname/ip address in the /etc/hosts file
# it will not work with only an ip address. Samba, or windows is configured not to accept connection via ip address ???
#
Department -fstype=cifs,user=***,password=********,domain=sambasharedomain,uid=****,gid=users sambashere:/Department
pluto:/home/rene #
and
pluto:/home/rene # more /etc/auto_saturnus
#
# automounter definitie for saturnus
sambashare 11.12.13.14:/expansion/sambashare
pluto:/home/rene #
I will add the timeout as you suggest.
And see if that helps.
No, if I click on a folder which is under control of the autfs, it will freeze the dolphin indefenite.
I added the --timeout=15 to the /net entry, and when it did not work, also after the /sambashare and /saturnus entry in the auto.master file.
It still freeze dolphin.
( I did not check all other functionality of other programs yet )
I don’t want them in the /etc/fstab. That might cause not being able to boot at all, if the nfs or smb cifs share are become unavailable.
(And they are, because they are only available after connecting to the remote network with the vpn)
Actually that is the reason why I want to use the autofs, I expect it to be more dynamic.
The freeze time is actually indefenite. At least longer than my patientce.
I completely understand. The default timeout value is 600 seconds (which would test my patience too).
Anyway, after reading the man page for auto.master/ page, I found a section referring to /etc/sysconfig/autofs:
The default value of several general settings may be changed in the configuration file /etc/sysconfig/autofs. They are:
TIMEOUT
sets the default mount timeout (program default 600).
NEGATIVE_TIMEOUT
Set the default timeout for caching failed key lookups (program default 60). If the equivalent command line option is given it will override this setting.
MOUNT_WAIT
Set the default time to wait for a response from a spawned mount(8) before sending it a SIGTERM. Note that we still need to wait for the RPC layer to timeout before the sub-process exits so this isn’t ideal but it is the best we can do. The default is to wait until mount(8) returns without intervention.
UMOUNT_WAIT
Set the default time to wait for a response from a spawned umount(8) before sending it a SIGTERM. Note that we still need to wait for the RPC layer to timeout before the sub-process exits so this isn’t ideal but it is the best we can do.
BROWSE_MODE
Maps are browsable by default (program default “yes”).
MOUNT_NFS_DEFAULT_PROTOCOL
Specify the default protocol used by mount.nfs(8) (program default 3). Since we can’t identify this default automatically we need to set it in the autofs configuration. This option will only make a difference for replicated map entries as availability probing isn’t used for single host map entries.
APPEND_OPTIONS
Determine whether global options, given on the command line or per mount in the master map, are appended to map entry options or if the map entry options replace the global options (program default “yes”, append options).
LOGGING
set default log level “none”, “verbose” or “debug” (program default “none”).
I noticed I have ‘DEFAULT_TIMEOUT’ (rather than ‘TIMEOUT’) in /etc/sysconfig/autofs, so maybe try setting the value for that variable to something a little more sane:
## Description: Set the default mount timeout (default 600).
## Type: integer(0:)
## Default: 600
#
DEFAULT_TIMEOUT=15
Hey ReneM64, I just noticed you’re using autofs to mount the remote samba share. I wasn’t really paying attention to what you were trying to achieve - I couldn’t see the wood for the trees
I have to connect to a remote samba share (accessible only via our company VPN), for submitting and viewing documentation. I don’t use autofs for this, but instead, I have an icon on the Dolphin ‘Places’ panel. If I click on the remote share icon when the VPN is not up, or the server is not available, Dolphin simply displays ‘Loading folder…’ (with endless network broadcasts) until I interrupt it by clicking on the ‘Stop’ icon, or search one of the local directories instead. It does not hang as you’ve described. This method is essentially the same as casually browsing via the location bar
I have this location saved on the ‘Places’ panel for convenience. So the remote share never actually gets mounted until I manually invoke it with Dolphin. This works for me nicely.
Do you think this may work for you?
Edit: A potentially useful reference for others who may come searching for help with this.
Glad there is a simple solution. The samabshare mount was straight foreward.
The domain controlled one, was more difficult.
And I am not sure, if it will stay work, since I had a lot of authentication windows. I don’t know which one I entered the right credentials.
Department -fstype=cifs,user=,password=*****,domain=sambasharedomain,uid=*,gid=users sambashere:/Department ??
When try to logon, I get a auth. window, and had to enter my user name with a domain combination in it.
In dolphin it is recorded now as
smb://sambasharedomain%5C@sambashare/Department
