Managing Systems and Workgroups: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators

Planning a Workgroup
Distributing Applications and Data
Chapter 262
export a given application from a single subdirectory under /opt, rather
than having to export several subdirectories for each application, or even
the whole of /usr/local.
What To Distribute; What To Keep Local
Theory
The V.4 file-sharing paradigm divides HP-UX directories into two
categories: private and shared (sometimes also referred to as dynamic
and static).
Directories that contain a system’s configuration information are
designated private and should not be shared via NFS.These are:
• / (root)
• /etc
• /dev
• /var
• /stand
The model also defines /home (for users’ home directories), /tmp and
/mnt (for local mounts) as private, though in practice there is an
argument for sharing /home and /var/mail (see “Should You Share
Users’ Home and Mail Directories?” on page 103) In addition,
/opt itself should not be shared, though its subdirectories are prime
candidates for sharing.
Directories defined as sharable are:
• /usr
• /sbin
• subdirectories of /opt
Practice
In practice, except under NFS Diskless (see “NFS Diskless Model” on
page 57) it is not a good idea to share /sbin or directories under /usr
other than /usr/local because it creates too much dependency (the
NFS client cannot function unless the NFS server is up) and because it
will cause problems when you try to upgrade the systems to a new