Hello all.


We recently had an issue with "cat /proc/mount" telling us that a CIFS file system was mounted, even though the mount was not working correctly. So we're not sure if we can trust linux to report malfunctioning mounts, so we're planning on adding a specific file on the mounted file system, and verify the mount by reading this file from the client side (linux). If linux fails to read it, we know that the mount have failed.

But before we go ahead doing this I thought I'd just hear how others are doing this sort of thing - how do you make sure that mount points are up and working?


- kenneho



EDIT: I just saw that I've posted in the security area, not in the server area. How do I move it?

The utility monit (http://mmonit.com/monit/) has this interesting feature:
check directory
Choose a directory in your filesystem that must exist, or create one purposely, and monit will check its presence for you. You can even specify which actions to perform in case of insuccess, receiving report emails and so on... I think this is one of the best solutions for you.

Moved to Server for more adequate exposure.

Thanks for your reply.

Seems like that tool can easily be replaced by a simple script that checks for the presenece of a file or folder, so I think I'd go with that instead. But thanks anyway.

I would suggest reading through your /var/log/messages file for log entries between when the cifs mount started and when you learned it wasn't mounted. What was the failure? You may have a successful mount at one point but have the session destroyed for some reason later. If it is a home grade NAS device that is mounted, perhaps the drive spun down. In other words, the mount may have been initially successful, but until accessing it failed, neither you nor the kernel would know otherwise.

There may be messages on the server as well that could provide better some clues as well.

Thanks. I actually allready monitor syslog messages, but didn't find any indication there about the failed mountpoint. I did get a warning about a unknown attribute (umask) in my mount command, but this have not caused the mount to fail before. So I can't find any problems in syslog regarding this issue.

How about errors on the server side. My first guess is that the session is being dropped. What error is there trying to access the share?