[G4] Join Two HFS Volumes?

[Alex]

On Jun 28, 2005, at 19:30, Carlos wrote:

> what I _want_ is to be able to mount a single network volume from the 
> host, and "see" the data contained on the other drives without 
> mounting them separately.
>
> I want to administer this at the server end if possible, so that 
> nothing ever changes on the host side, regardless of how many times I 
> add, remove, or change the drives on the server.

Ah. That's not the same thing, actually.

We've been talking about mounting a (local) HFS filesystem at a 
different mountpoint. Would that achieve what you want? I don't know, 
and I can't test it now, but why don't you test it? Unmount a local 
volume, then, following the example I gave you, use the mount_hfs 
command to mount it to a different node (e.g., /Users/Shared). Then go 
to a client, connect to the server, and see if you can access it the 
way you want it. I suspect it won't work, but I could very well be 
wrong.

Whether it works or not, I see it as a very poor way of implementing 
what you want. First, because, IMHO, it's bad resource management. 
Second, because Mac OS X offers a much more elegant way of achieving it 
-- the NetInfo database. Basically, you need to bind each client to the 
server's NetInfo db, and set up automount in the parent NetInfo db. 
Then, when you change drives on the server, all you need to do is alter 
the automount settings in the server NetInfo db. You should find 
details in the Mac OS X Server setup guide.

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