Re: Sharing NFS file system (making it read only)

[Dirk von Suchodoletz <dirk@goe.net>]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Dvir Oren wrote:

> 
> I want to share the same file system for all of my etherboot clients. 
>  I realize that some parts have to be different, and I intend to create 
> ramdisks for them, and mount them.
> 
> However, if I make the NFS file system read only, I come across a 
> lot of problems:
> 
> 1.  I need /dev to be rw.

Create a ramdisk at first and copy all needed rw stuff in it. I have
written a tutorial for setting up XTerminals and diskless X stations under
Suse Linux (german only :-( ) But have a look at the tarballs:

http://goe.net/anleitungen/dxs.tgz
http://goe.net/anleitungen/xterminal62.tgz

especially at the sbin/init.d/boot scripts. And the content which will
untarred into the ramdisk in var/ram/ramdisk.tgz

> 2.  I can't have /etc/passwd (and the related files) read only, if I 
> want to add users, etc.  I can't have them link to somewhere else, 
> passwd claims that it can't lock them.

Use NIS or such stuff.

> Has anybody succeeded in making the file system read only?  I'm 
> finding it extremely difficult.

Yes, it was a bit difficult because of the /dev stuff needed rw. But with
the new kernels you could try the /dev filesystem option, it should make
such things easier.

But in the end you will have a filesystem you can use for hundreds of
different clients ... We run a set of 80 diskless X stations and 130
XTerminals (relatively different PC hardware) out of a one filesystem for
the xterminals and one for the diskless X stations. And then you will see
the effort was worth it :-)

Ciao,
	Dirk

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