Managing network mounts

[elektro <elektro geekspot de>]

For months, almost years, I'm searching for a decent way to
automagically handle network mounts - and NetWorkManager could finally
be what I'm searching for!

My problem: All my files are on my big desktop computer harddisk, and
I'm mostly working with my laptop, and I have the desktop harddisk
mounted on the laptop. The laptop has either a wired connection,
sometimes when I'm on the terrace I have a wireless network - and
sometimes none at all. The laptop goes totally crazy when it tries to
mount the remote directory and I have no network, or when the remote dir
is mounted and the connection suddenly drops.

I'd suggest that NetworkManager (optionally) handles such network mounts
in /etc/fstab, and I'd propose the following way:

Put all network mounts in /etc/fstab with the noauto option, so the they
don't get mounted by any init scripts.

If there's no network connection, then networkmanager obviously does
nothing. But if there is a network connection, then networkmanager
should mount a network directory as soon as it is accessed (e.g. when I
"cd" into it), and unmount it instantly when I stop using it (e.g. when
I do "cd .."). This way, networkmanager would make sure that network
mounts are only mounted when they're really used, thus minimizing the
chance that a remote directory remains mounted when the network
connection drops for some reason.

It's also important that networkmanager does not go crazy if I have a
network connection, but if the remote computer is e.g. turned off and
thus the network mount is not available.

Perhaps networkmanager could just interoperate with something like
submount, or handle it completely on it's own. There could be some
really simple config options that show all remote mounts in /etc/fstab
and you can choose which one networkmanager should take care off.

Any comments welcome!


Sincerely,
Tom