2

I've currently got ubuntu to mount my external hard drive on boot and use a folder on there as the home folder. I've just bought a raspberry pi to act as a file server, and I'll be connecting the external hard drive mentioned earlier to that as its hard drive.

I'll then share the contents of the external hard drive over the network (on a static IP).

Obviously, without the presence of the hard drive when I boot Ubuntu, it will come up with an error message at the boot screen.

Is it possible to set my Ubuntu settings to mount the shared drive on boot, and then use the same folder within it as the Home folder?

The Raspberry Pi will be on 24/7, so there is no problem of there being periods of down time for the shared drive.

The Raspberry Pi is currently running ArchLinux, but I can set it up with Raspbian if that makes life easier.

I have googled this and not managed to find a solution to this precise question!

Many thanks in advance.

4
  • Your home folder is currently on the external hard disk drive? If yes, of course you get an error if you are booting without it... For NFS and a setup howto see help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpNFSHowTo#Introduction
    – Wolfgang
    Feb 12, 2014 at 18:28
  • please be a little bit more precise with your question, what do you exactly want to do (for example: do you want to be your home folder (usually /home/<username>) a network ressource)?
    – Wolfgang
    Feb 12, 2014 at 18:57
  • No, as I say in OP, my home folder is currently on an external hard drive and I'm looking to change the set up so that ubuntu looks for the home drive on a network resource when booting. Feb 12, 2014 at 19:41
  • Ie Computer 1: runs ubuntu; computer 2 runs archlinux and has a shared directory; computer 1 uses the shared directory as it's home drive. Feb 12, 2014 at 19:42

1 Answer 1

2

Yes, you can do this:

  1. set up an nfs on your host (raspberry for example) => https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpNFSHowTo#Introduction

  2. "remove" your home directory (maybe just rename it for testing), create an empty one at this place (mkdir /home) and mount the nfs to /home => https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpNFSHowTo#Mounts

your should use the fstab method to do the mount on boot.

0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .