NFS / filenames in Mac apps

[the_shrubber]

My Mac applications (for example, Mozilla, IE) seem to get confused by filenames over NFS mounts.

IE would see something like this
file://localhost/Volumes/<nfs%20-1001>/shrub/Documents/OmniWeb.html

And mozilla would see something like this
file:///%3Cnfs%20-1001%3E/shrub/Documents/OmniWeb.html

Is there a way to have my Mac handle those NFS mounted files handled more transparantly? I'd MUCH prefer to have something like /users/foo/shrub/Documents/OmniWeb.html, which i could then bookmark and view on my non-Mac machines. For now, these filenames don't even work for bookmarks on my mac.

[cesare]

I haven't tried but I guess you could make a symbolic link from a nice name to the mounted volume.

Cesare

[ashevin]

Hi,

I tested this out myself, and I've come to the conclusion that Apple really messed this up. I did a manual nfs mount under /mnt, and OS X still treated it as mounted under /Volumes, in the same way you described. Every access via /mnt was treated as an access through /Volumes/<nfs...>. This was only from the GUI. Working in the terminal, I could use /mnt like on any other Unix.

This comes from Apple wanting all mounted volumes to appear on the Desktop, but I think that manual mounts outside of /Volumes should be treated as logical parts of the local filesystem, as Unix intended. Chalk it up to a bad melding of Unix and Mac OS.

In reply to Cesare, I don't think a symbolic link would work, because the <nfs%20-1001> part of the pathname is likely not constant across remounts.

- Avi

[honestpuck]

Hi Shrubber,

If you don't mind turning on Apache (which is on by default) then this is pretty easy to fix.

First thing you need to do is mount your NFS share somewhere useful (like /mnt)

Then create a link to it in /Library/WebServer/Documents.

Now you can access it with 'http://hostname/mountname/path/to/file' or some such. If you're not listed in your DNS then from your machine 'hostname' can be 'localhost' and on other machines in your net you can use your IP address.

As an added bonus with this method you get much nicer looking file lists when you're browsing with icons, sorting, no files beginning with '.' and the ability to throw an 'index.html' file in any given directory to display something other than the list or a .htaccess file to lock people out, a README.txt file to append to the bottom of the list and a whole bunch of other wonders.

Tony

[ashevin]

Nice idea to use apache for document browsing. You also get the nice benefits of mime types to automatically start the correct viewer for you.

Would be nice have NFS paths fixed for real, though. Maybe we should submit this as a bug to Apple.

- Avi

[the_shrubber]

on by default? i don't want that! :eek:

well... this is the nicest solution i've seen so far (not that i've actually tried it), but i'd still much much prefer to have my browser (and microsoft word, etc) see actual filenames rather than URL, and having to depend on my machine being up and serving to make things go.

thanks for the tip... i'll just be looking into turning Apache off now