Need help nfs mounting from an Apollo.

[Wendy Ross]

We ran into this problem trying to mount our apollo ring as well.  In fact,
I felt rather funny when my first question to AIX defect support was:
"How much do you know about the Apollo file system"?  Rumor has it that IBM 
had only one apollo with which to test NFS, therefore the "/" and "//" levels 
were the same to them.

IF YOU ARE TRYING TO MOUNT ONLY ONE APOLLO:

If you only need to mount one apollo, you can save a lot of trouble by
creating an /etc/filesystem entry and mounting /<apollo>.  It does work,
but it will not allow you ring access at the "//" level.  Read the general
comments below if this gives you errors.
                 

IF YOU ARE TRYING TO MOUNT THE // LEVEL:

Here is what they gave us as the work around, although I gather
the actual fix will come out in a later release (they did not know
which one at the time).  You will not be able to put a stanza in 
/etc/filesystems, but will instead have to put some version of the following
line in your /etc/rc file (I placed it right after the "mount all" command):
(note: the following can be invoked from the command line too; you'll want
it in the rc file in case of reboot)    

echo " Mounting apollo ring "
/etc/helpers/nfsmnthelp M 0 nfs // /n/engin/apollo/ring fg,rw,intr,rsize=1024,wsize=1024
                                        
/etc/helpers/nfsmnthelp :  lower level command
M 0                     :  needed arguments
nfs                     :  Name of the apollo running nfsd.  Ours is named nfs.
//                      :  // level of apollo ring
/n/engin/apollo/ring    :  directory on RS/6000 on which to mount apollo ring 
fg,rw,intr, etc ...     :  the arguments we use for NFS mounting
                                                                           

GENERAL COMMENTS FOR MOUNTING APOLLOS AT THE / OR // LEVELS:

Remember that when you are NFS mounting some machines (including apollos)
you can receive errors when you try to mount them from the command line as root.  
Root is in too many groups, so the NFS server doesn't recognize you as
a valid client.  The workaround is simple.  Create an account that belongs
to group system, and then su to that account and perform the mount on the
command line.  This will work, assuming your client is in the server's export
list, the directory you are trying to mount over exists, the network is up, etc.  
For some reason stanzas in the /etc/filesystems file and the above line in the
/etc/rc file do work upon boot, though.  I guess root doesn't have a whole bunch
of groups attached to it at that point or something.                                                                     

                                                              
I hope after you go to all this trouble that you have better luck than
we've had at encouraging apollo nfsd to stay up.  Anyhow ...

I hope this helps.  It works for us.  If it doesn't work for you for some
reason, I would be curious, so mail me the error messages, etc. if you like.
 
               
Wendy Ross                               wross at caen.engin.umich.edu 
University of Michigan
Computer Aided Engineering Network
 
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