Suggestions on NFS strategy

["Pedro I. Sanchez" <pedro.sanchez@ctidata.com>]

Hello,

I'd like to have your opinions on an issue I have on the proper way to
install NFS. I set up a Debian file-server with two purposes:

	- Provide file space to Linux and Win95 users (with NFS client
	  software), and
	- Keep all Linux users with an up-to-date release of Debian.

For the latter, I want to update software in the file-server ONLY and
have all Linux users nfs-mount /usr and /home from it. Each Linux client
will have its own root and /var partitions.

My main concern is with /etc. Certainly, I cannot have the Linux clients
mount /etc from the file-server because the start-up scripts, X11 and a
bunch of other things change from one machine to another.

But on the other hand, all Debian packages keep their default config
files under /etc. This means that if the clients don't mount /etc from
the file-server, they'll run into troubles when running the new
applications I install in the file-server.

I'm thinking of having the clients mount the file-server's /etc into,
say, their local /user/etc, have these clients manually copy the
relevant config files from there into their /etc, and then tune-up these
config files if required.

Is this the right way of doing things? How would do you do it?

I'd appreciate your comments very much, thank you,

--
Pedro I. Sanchez
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