Subject: Re: dhclient in rc*/netstart
To: Michael C. Richardson <mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>
From: Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net>
List: tech-net
Date: 01/27/1999 12:48:45
On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Michael C. Richardson wrote:

>     Curt> Indeed. But it would be nice to support having /var on NFS, or
>     Curt> whatever, on a host configured with dhcp. Does it work for you if
>     Curt> we put the leases database files in a directory called
>     Curt> /etc/dhclient.db, (or whatever) and you symlink it elsewhere if it
>     Curt> shouldn't be on root?
> 
>   That doesn't work for me.
>   I prefer that you simply create /var/db on your writeable root either
> put a symlink there, and NFS mount whatever you need either on top of /var,
> or on its subdirectories.

This appears to me to break if you don't have a writable root; /var
will get mounted, but normally one runs dhclient before that happens.

The basic problem, as I see it here, is that dhclient uses /var,
but dhclient is generally run from netstart.local, and /var is not
mounted until *after* netstart (which calls netstart.local) is run.

Now I can fix half the problem with some code I'm going to put in
to /etc/rc mount all local (ffs, basically) critical filesystems
before netstart is run. However, if your /var is an NFS filesystem...

cjs
--
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   604 801 5335   De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.
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