Automounting Home Directories

[Naaman Campbell]

> Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 21:20:04 +1100
> From: Sasha Tsykin <stsykin at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Automounting Home Directories
> To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>,
>         naamanc2 at gmail.com
> Message-ID: <43D8A254.8010804 at optusnet.com.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Naaman Campbell wrote:
> > I have configured a multi-user Ubuntu system to automount users NFS
> > home directories via autofs.  On first login in the morning, it seems
> > that the Gnome login process does not wait for the initial automount
> > to finish and displays a "Home Directory Not Found" error to the
> > user.  After the user waits 30 seconds and tries again, they can login
> > without a problem.
> >
> > Has anyone also come across the same issue or is there a way to make
> > the Gnome login process wait until the automount has completed before
> > continuing..
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Naaman.
> autofs tends to be slower. If you want it to work faster, specify the
> file system specifically and make sure there are no bottlenecks in you
> network.

Sasha,

It is not feasible to explicitly define each users home directory to
mount back to the fileserver for two reasons:

1. Users who are native to our site have their home directories split
between two disparate fileservers

2. There needs to be handling for when users from remote sites visit this site

The use of autofs seems to be the best option for our requirements.  I
believe the issue is with the gdm login process.

Naaman.

> Sasha