Brian Richardson wrote: >> I hadn't really thought of using NFS, >> but I'll look into it. >> I guess I am slightly reluctant to use NFS over WiFi, >> as I am not sure what will happen if the link breaks >> (as it does occasionally). >> >> Also I suppose I would have to ensure that NFS did not try to run >> if I was away from my desktop. >> My recollection is that NFS hangs for a very long time >> if it does not succeed? > > Yes, that would be one of the caveats; NFS will hang indefinitely > waiting for the server to be available. Running it over the WiFi should > be as secure as the WiFi itself (you're not running it unencrypted, are > you?) I'm not quite sure I understand the meaning of your > second-to-last statement. The desktop will run an NFS server and will > export /var/spool/mail. Your laptop will be an NFS client, and could be > configured to use an automounter to ensure that network traffic is kept What I meant was: at the moment I run uucp every 10 minutes to collect mail (directly to my laptop) and when I run KMail it looks in /var/spool/mail to see if any mail had arrived. If I'm far away from my desktop uucp doesn't connect but that doesn't cause any problems; and then there is nothing in /var/spool/mail , but that again causes no problem. If I used NFS as you suggest I would presumably have to tell my laptop whether it could mount /var/spool/mail on my desktop. If it tried to mount it automatically, and failed, I assume the program would just hang. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
