Changing Mount Options for Specific Connections

The Solstice NFS Client Properties are global mount options, meaning they are the initial settings used for all network connections made, either implicitly by browsing in Network Neighborhood, or explicitly by mapping a drive. The global properties are applied to persistent connections as well.

The Solstice NFS Client software also lets users change mount options for connections to a server and for implicit mounts and mapped drives. This capability allows users to access servers or exported file systems using options that are different from the default options.

NFS Client allows two kinds of per-connection options:

• Server-level options, which affect all connections to that server

• Connection-point options, which affect only that connection

Not all the NFS properties are available at all levels. For example, the Data Cache and File Name Cache options are available as global properties, but are not available as properties of server-level connections.

Changing Mount Options for Connections to a Server

Users can set mount options for all connections made from a client computer to a particular server. Once this is done, each connection (implicit, or explicit drive map) will use the same mount options set for the server. Change mount options by first browsing NFS servers, and then selecting a specific server or file system. Once selected, display a server's or file system's properties to see its current connection options. Use these property sheets to modify these options.

When Changes to Connection Options Take Effect

Changes to connection options will take effect the next time a network resource is connected, not mapped. There is a reason for this distinction. When you browse into an exported file system on a network through Network Neighborhood, that resource gets temporarily connected. If you then change a connection option and map that same resource to a local drive letter, the new option will not be used because the resource is already connected.

Resources that are connected through Network Neighborhood, but not mapped, will be disconnected:

• After the 5-minute time-out has been reached

• When the user logs out

Once the resource has been disconnected, browsing or mapping that resource will use the new connection options.

The surest way, however, to make sure the changed connection options are used when you connect to a server or other resource is to restart Windows 95.

Order Used in Applying Mount Options to a Connection

Mount options are applied to a connection in the order of global, server, mount point. This means that when NFS makes a connection and decides which mount options to use, it looks at the global NFS Client Properties first, the server properties second, and the mount point properties last. To illustrate this, consider one particular mount option, the Mapping Character feature. Suppose you set this feature as follows for the global NFS Client properties, for server woody, and the connection to /files on woody.

If Mapping Character were the only property set at the server level and mount point level, each connection would use the Solstice NFS Client Properties for the values of all other mount options besides Mapping Character.