Jason Pyeron wrote on Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:42:40 -0400:
This option is based on the option of the same name provided in IRIX NFS. Normally, if a server exports two filesystems one of which is mounted on the other, then the client will have to mount both filesystems explicitly to get access to them. If it just mounts the parent, it will see an empty directory at the place where the other filesystem is mounted. That filesystem is "hidden".
Thanks for the hint about exports, I think I would have never tried man on that. I think it's not the problem I see, but after some more reading and experiencing that the proposed solution fails I think I know the reason.
The above paragraph only applies to the cross-mounted filesystem I think, e.g. if I mount under /nfs/hostname then this will be "hidden". I tried the "nohide" solution and it didn't make a difference for my problem. There's also an interesting option crossmnt explained right after nohide, but this is not going to work either I think (and actually I don't really understand it, it's confusingly explained).
On rereading that man article it becomes obvious that you mount "filesystems". So, if you mount / on the other machine you get only what the other machine has under that mount point. If I have a mount point /home on the other machine that won't be available under the / export. I have to export and mount /nfs/hostname/home if I want to get that one as well. I think. I haven't tried yet.
What doesn't fit in this, though, is the fact that the other mount points are displayed as directories and I can work on them (just in some cache it seems). This is very confusing as you never know if you are working on the real thing or not. I would have thought that the coders would have taken care of that. So, maybe my theory is not correct. But the nohide option doesn't fix the problem either.
Kai