> > are you saying that clients don't need information about the > > variety of nfs servers serving the xyz tree? if they do not, then > > could you explain how the client picks which server to mount. > > The client does not pick. It is part of the automounter's decision. > And once the server gets picked by the automounter, it is awfully > convenient that you see the actual mount as part of the namespace.
there is the rub. for the "actual mounts" to be meaningful on the client, they need to be interpreted on the client. in the case of srvfs, the namespace is interpreted on the server running srvfs. (srvfs is a proxy.) in fact, you might not be able to directly mount the stuff srvfs serves. i use it (actually exportfs) every day to export il-only fileservers via aan over tls over the internet. one part of the ns making up the namespace i import is #s/boot. if that were interpreted on the client, it would point to a different fs (in a different authentication domain) than it does on the server. - erik
