Personal System Folders and NFS

[Mike Chow]

In article <h^8pg2.fc at smurf.sub.org> urlichs at smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes:
>In comp.unix.aux, article <HOSKING.90Dec1145333 at ibis.cs.umass.edu>,
>  hosking at cs.umass.edu writes:
>< I am having trouble with personal system folders (created using the
>< systemfolder command) for users whose home directories are on an NFS-mounted
>< volume. When the user logs in at the console things go really slowly, with
>< some disk activity, then eventually the login just gives up and the Login
>< dialogue box comes back. No error messages, nothing, just plain refusal to log
>< in.
>
>I saw this too. The System _file_ must not be on an NFS volume.
>(I don't remember any more whether the System _Folder_ can be...)
>

This is untrue.  In fact, I usually run A/UX 2.0 with a system folder on
an nfs file system.  You might want to check that the permissions on your
system folder are correct -- the Mac environment quietly quits if a key
file is not accessable when it is starting up.  One thing to try is to
log into the console emulator (do this from the Login dialog), and once
in the console, type "mac32" to start the environment.

Other than NFS being slower than a local disk, there is no reason why a system
folder on an NFS file system shouldn't work.  However, the release notes do
caution against multiply using the same system folder on an NFS file system.
Since some of the Mac data files are not "re-entrant", you can only have one
Mac session accessing a system folder at a time.  Check for this situation as 
well.


Mike Chow
mgchow at apple.com