Autofs fails to start with maps from NIS
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
autofs (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Low
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
Binary package hint: autofs
On Ubuntu Hardy with NetworkManager enabled, autofs doesn't work if your maps are distributed by NIS (which is extremely common in corporate environments).
In Hardy, NIS is configured to wait for NetworkManager to bring up the interface; it listens on dbus for the network start event and only then will it bind to the NIS server. This is good, I guess, since otherwise NIS can't bind.
However, it means that after S18nis starts, unlike a typical system, on Ubuntu NIS is not bound to a server yet. That means when we get to S19autofs and it tries to run ypcat etc. to grab the auto.master and other maps, nothing is printed.
That means autofs doesn't come up properly and we have to restart it by hand after the system has successfully booted.
I HATE the idea of forcing autofs to start listening on dbus, like someone hacked ypbind to do; it just seems really wrong to have to go through all system daemons and modify them like that. Doesn't NetworkManager come with some kind of wrapper utility that can be used to easily wrap around common network services like that and start/restart them using traditional sysv init operations, when the proper dbus messages are received? If not, that is where someone should spend some time rather than hacking GNU/Linux-specific features like dbus into generic packages like nis and autofs.
Anyway, this bug still stands: autofs is completely non-functional when using NIS to distribute maps in Hardy.
I've heard that this was true (NIS listened for dbus events) in Gutsy as well but I didn't notice it there; maybe NetworkManager was so buggy that I turned it off and I don't remember doing it.
$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu hardy (development branch)
Release: 8.04
ii network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu5
ii nis 3.17-12ubuntu1
ii autofs 4.1.4+debian-2.1
Changed in autofs: | |
importance: | Undecided → Low |
Changed in autofs (Ubuntu): | |
status: | New → Confirmed |
I too face the same problem in 8.04. my home directory doesn't get auto mounted when I configure my system to use NIS.
Note : This functionality used to work in 7.10
I had to manually create auto.home to temporarily over come the problem. It'd be good if this is fixed.