AutoMountNFS

A small systemd service I used for mounting NFS shares from a host on the local network using systemd and NetworkManager-dispatch on Arch Linux.

Why

Systemd has support for automounting NFS shares using the x-systemd-automount option. However, if the server is not found on the attached network, then the booting system will hang until systemd gives up trying to mount the missing shares. For wireless hosts, this is not acceptable.

How

With NetworkManager-dispatcher enabled, systemd will activate any scripts contained in /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d. This is where 10-AutoMountNFS is installed. This script calls the AutoMountNFS systemd service which itself calls the automountnfs script that does the actual mounting. The automountnfs script checks for my nfs server, if it is found, then it attempts to mount the nfs shares. If it is not found, then it attempts to umount any mounted shares. Simple.

Additionally, AutoMountNFS uses systemd timers to run every minute. If the NFS host cannot be reached, then the NFS mounts are unmounted.

Install

Development Prerequisites

For development and building using the justfile targets:

• just - Command runner
• aurutils - Required for just build-and-ship target
• pre-commit - For code quality checks

Building

1. Clone the repository

2. Using justfile (recommended):

   # Setup development environment
   just setup
   
   # Build package locally
   just build
   
   # Build and ship to alvaone repository (requires aurutils)
   just build-and-ship

3. Manual build:

   updpkgsums && makepkg -f

4. Install the package:

   # Using justfile
   just install
   
   # Or manually
   sudo pacman -U automountnfs-*.pkg.tar.xz

5. Make sure NetworkManager-dispatcher is enabled:

   systemctl enable NetworkManager-dispatcher

6. Enable and start AutoMountNFS

   systemctl enable AutoMountNFS.timer
   systemctl start AutoMountNFS.timer

7. Check /var/run/automountnfs for output.