"Distributed" fstab?

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#1

Hey guys
I wonder if someone can help me with a solution to this!

I have three “Client” computers, two that run Suse 11.0 and 1 that’s 10.3. I have 5 “server” computers which host my files.

Although it’s not often I change my shares, it does happen from time to time. As you can imagine, I have to do the following on each client PC:-

New share

  1. Create a new folder (/usr/share/newsharename/)
  2. Edit fstab to include the new share.

Now, this I admit, is not a huge task but I was looking at a way to make a change to a central fstab, which is then pushed out to the three clients.

Now, I was about to use rsync to do this but then I stumbled upon a small problem; fstab includes local disks and their partitions so if I were to say roll out the fstab from Client 1, Clients 2 and 3 would stop working as the /, swap and home partitions would break.

I could use rsync to replicate the folder structure but not the mounts.

Anyway, I’m completely lost so I cry: HELP!!!

#2

If these are NFS shares, then I guess you could use an alternative mounting mechanism like autofs with mount points in /etc/auto.master

NFS Client Configuration Files

#3

Thanks for the link, the shares are CIFS, well, I think they are anyway; that’s what they’re mounted as and they work OK …

#4

Now, I was about to use rsync to do this but then I stumbled upon a small problem; fstab includes local disks and their partitions so if I were to say roll out the fstab from Client 1, Clients 2 and 3 would stop working as the /, swap and home partitions would break.

I could use rsync to replicate the folder structure but not the mounts.

Maybe you could put the samba mounts in /etc/samba/smbfstab, leaving only the local mounts in /etc/fstab.

Described here:

Thanassis Bakalidis’s Programming and DBA Scratch Pad: Linux: How to mount Windows Shares with Samba at startup