[Pc_Support] Re: Another easy one.

[Bryan J. Smith]

George Laiacona wrote:
> Well, it was "working". Except that it wasn't, so rebooting cleared that up.
> Don't think Automounter would have helped, since "disk and network
> filesystems" seemed to think it was OK.

I guess I made an assumption from the fact that you forgot about it.
I assumed (incorrectly?) that you hadn't accessed the link in awhile.
The automounter would have umounted the smbfs VFS hack after a period
of inactivity.

It's been my experience that SMB is a PITA with all its required TCP
Keepalives and other issues for a system that assumes when it's
mounted, it's always there --like UNIX--or, more specifically, Linux
(because most UNIX flavors don't even offer a VFS-like hack like
smbfs).

Automounter helps that, because it just umounts its after a period of
inactivity.  I find that removes the overwhelming majority of
disconnects with SMB.  SMB has always wreaked havoc on even Windows
clients -- e.g., even the NT print spooler (the #1 reason why NT
crashed was due to SMB-based print queues).

> I'd like to set it up as a NFS share, eventually, when I learn how and get a round tuit.
> I need that link to be a little more robust, so to speak.

Regardless of what filesystem you choose, if you only use the link
every now and then, you want to use the Automounter.