[ale] fstab vs automounter for NFS home directories

[Todor Fassl]

Is there any drawback to mounting the NFS share for home directories in 
the fstab versus using the automounter?

For example, I could put a line in /etc/fstab like this:
nfshome:/export /home nfs4 defaults 0 0

Or I could have the automounter mount /home/username when the user logs 
in. I'm currently doing it via the automounter -- in fact, I always 
have. I've never actually configured a machine to mount at boot time an 
nfs share to use for home directories.

PS: The reason I am thinking of not using the automounter is that we ran 
out of office space in my building and we put a single user in another 
building. I can't get the automounter to work. Mounting home directories 
works if I type in a mount command:

mount -t nfs nfshome:/export/username /home/username

But the automounter does not work. Neither does showmount. If I type 
"shomount -e nfshome", it times out after about 30 seconds. I suspect a 
firewall issue wrt the portmapper (port 111). I put a packet sniffer on 
the nfs file server and it usually gets a UDP packet on port 111 from a 
workstation doing a showmount. But that packet does not arrive when the 
showmount is done from the workstation with the problem.

-- 
Todd