Should media files (HTPC) using NFS mount using fstab/static or autofs?

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 with XBMC and am streaming media files from my fileserver (mounted using NFS).

Right now I have fstab configured to mount my NFS share like this:

192.168.0.99:/tank/media /mnt/media nfs4 _netdev,auto 0 0

However, sometimes the mount is not yet available (?) when XBMC starts, so when I try to play a file from that mount it freezes (i.e. just waits, and waits...). To fix the problem I need to SSH into the server and mount -a. (or it sometimes I can wait a few minutes and it might fix itself and/or finish mounting.

Is it better to use AutoFS for this situation? If not, what other options are available?

EDIT: I also want the mount to be resilient against file server downtime or weird network issues, etc.

1 Answer

I have used static mounts for years for media files with good results since we want them highly available. However we have a dedicated HTPC/MediaServer runinning 24/7 (it takes backups at night from the destops too). I've thought AutoFS seemed complicated vs just mounting the server partitons in fstab and letting them run. I don't like switching harddisks off and on.

I wonder why your mounts are behaving like this? is something odd about how you've setup your nfs4 mounts? I think I fixed a similar problem with the 'crossmnt' option on the parent directory in the /etc/exports entry. The child mounts would be delayed for a while after I opened the parent export folder. I think with the crossmnt option on the top level /etc/export entry; the child mounts popped up quickly but it has been a while since I solved that issue.

Listing your /etc/exports would help.

On the client side:

$cat /proc/mounts | grep nfs4

will show all the client nfs4 mount options you are ending up with.

This from might help you from nfs - fstab format and options for the nfs file systems

 bg / fg Determines how the mount(8) command behaves if an attempt to mount an export fails. The fg option causes mount(8) to exit with an error status if any part of the mount request times out or fails outright. This is called a "foreground" mount, and is the default behavior if neither the fg nor bg mount option is specified. If the bg option is specified, a timeout or failure causes the mount(8) command to fork a child which continues to attempt to mount the export. The parent immediately returns with a zero exit code. This is known as a "background" mount. If the local mount point directory is missing, the mount(8) command acts as if the mount request timed out. This permits nested NFS mounts specified in /etc/fstab to proceed in any order during system initialization, even if some NFS servers are not yet available. Alternatively these issues can be addressed using an automounter (refer to automount(8) for details).