I've created a launch daemon (no KeepAlive, but RunAtLoad is true) that runs a script at boot time that essentially does this:
mkdir /Volumes/homes
/sbin/mount_nfs nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:/homes /Volumes/homes
Background (why I've done this)
1) The users don't have to logon to the NAS separately. The script runs at boot time, so by the time they manage to logon, everything is mounted.
2) I've put the users' directories on the NAS and it's so transparent that they wouldn't even notice. The only thing they see is that no matter which of the two Macs they logon to, they have all their files as if they were local - great!
3) I don't have to have user ids on the NAS - all I had to ensure is that the Mac users have the same UIDs on both Macs and now all permissions work as if the files were local. I'm happy with the security implications of using NFS this way - it's a safe environment (home).
Issue 1 - Inexplicable extra mount points
Occasionally in addition to the expected /Volumes/homes, I can also see /Volumes/homes-1, and rarely even /Volumes/homes-2.
They don't cause problems (the users don't even notice) and they work and can be unmounted without issues (all my symlinks point to /Volumes/homes/...), but it annoys me that they're there and I can't figure out where they could come from! ...or any pattern as to why they appear.
Is there anything in Mac OS that might be remembering what was mounted and tries to mount it again?
Issue 2 - Mounting via Thunderbolt IP address is slow/flakey
I have a QNAP Thunderbolt NAS. If I use its Thunderbolt IP address for mounting, it takes 10-20 seconds longer than with the NAS's Ethernet IP address, to the point where it would often not finish until after the user has had enough time to log on. That's not good, because e.g. their desktop background might be a picture on the NAS, and then instead they get the default mountain background because Mac OS can't find the image file (yet)! Sometimes it doesn't want to mount at all via Thunderbolt. No such issues via the Ethernet IP address - either mounting via Thunderbolt is flakey or there are some dependencies during boot that don't work out...? I would like to use Thunderbolt because it's faster (the reason I got that specific QNAP NAS model).
As a side note, I haven't played around at all with automounting (/etc/fstab or /etc/auto_master), because I think that would only kick in when the user logs on, at which point it's too late (e.g. for loading the desktop background).
Any suggestions or comments appreciated, I'm still learning ;-)
mkdir /Volumes/homes
/sbin/mount_nfs nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:/homes /Volumes/homes
Background (why I've done this)
1) The users don't have to logon to the NAS separately. The script runs at boot time, so by the time they manage to logon, everything is mounted.
2) I've put the users' directories on the NAS and it's so transparent that they wouldn't even notice. The only thing they see is that no matter which of the two Macs they logon to, they have all their files as if they were local - great!
3) I don't have to have user ids on the NAS - all I had to ensure is that the Mac users have the same UIDs on both Macs and now all permissions work as if the files were local. I'm happy with the security implications of using NFS this way - it's a safe environment (home).
Issue 1 - Inexplicable extra mount points
Occasionally in addition to the expected /Volumes/homes, I can also see /Volumes/homes-1, and rarely even /Volumes/homes-2.
They don't cause problems (the users don't even notice) and they work and can be unmounted without issues (all my symlinks point to /Volumes/homes/...), but it annoys me that they're there and I can't figure out where they could come from! ...or any pattern as to why they appear.
Is there anything in Mac OS that might be remembering what was mounted and tries to mount it again?
Issue 2 - Mounting via Thunderbolt IP address is slow/flakey
I have a QNAP Thunderbolt NAS. If I use its Thunderbolt IP address for mounting, it takes 10-20 seconds longer than with the NAS's Ethernet IP address, to the point where it would often not finish until after the user has had enough time to log on. That's not good, because e.g. their desktop background might be a picture on the NAS, and then instead they get the default mountain background because Mac OS can't find the image file (yet)! Sometimes it doesn't want to mount at all via Thunderbolt. No such issues via the Ethernet IP address - either mounting via Thunderbolt is flakey or there are some dependencies during boot that don't work out...? I would like to use Thunderbolt because it's faster (the reason I got that specific QNAP NAS model).
As a side note, I haven't played around at all with automounting (/etc/fstab or /etc/auto_master), because I think that would only kick in when the user logs on, at which point it's too late (e.g. for loading the desktop background).
Any suggestions or comments appreciated, I'm still learning ;-)