[Leaplist] discussion - ways to share/access data

[Bruce Metcalf]

Dan Cherry wrote:

> I use multiple computers, and would be interested in various ideas
> and viewpoints on storing files (if you use multiple computers to
> share files).

> So, for those of you who use multiple pc's, what have you found that 
> works best for accessing your document files?

I took an older system and made it a dedicated NFS file server. The 
trick for me was to mount the servers files to a specific directory on 
each of the client systems (in my case, /home/hq). This leaves the 
configuration files on the individual machines (/home/username still 
exists), but permits common access to the shared file area while 
protecting work in progress.

I am now in the process of migrating local home directories to the 
server. For example, moving the contents of /home/bruce on each machine 
into /home/hq/bruce on the file server. I'm only moving visible files 
(those not starting with .) which -- if I understand correctly -- will 
leave the config files behind.

This approach does require some additional thought on the part of the 
network users, some of whom don't quite "get it" -- and since one's my 
wife, I may have to move to a different approach. We'll see.

When I de-haunt one more machine, I plan to migrate my file server to a 
pair of systems configured as a single high-availability server. Again, 
I see no noticeable delays from using a 500MHz machine for a file 
server, so getting two boxen to do this with should be a trivial exercise.

HTH,
Bruce

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