On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 01:31:25PM -0500, Kyle McDonald wrote: > If everything is in /usr/bin, how do I configure my users environments > to look for these things on the network *before* /usr/bin, and yet allow > them to get OS level things (mv, rm, ls, etc.) locally even when the > network server is having issues?
Networked filesystems are an issue no matter what. The issue isn't just order of appearance in PATH: home directories are normally on NFS servers too. And networked filesystems are an issue because the relevant filesystem system calls are synchronous and don't provide a simple way for apps to deal with timeouts. And that's because before networked filesystems such features weren't needed. Those interfaces have stuck around due to their ease of use and familiarity, and now we pay this price, that when file servers go away their clients become unresponsive. > I guess I'll just have to put the network path first, and then invest in > HA-NFS. You had to do the latter anyways. As to the former, avoid conflicts and you're OK; of course, we can create conflicts any time, but that's part and parcel of the trade-offs involved in serendipitous discovery. Life's tough. Nico --
