> The CIFS mounts can't be unmounted without a reboot,

> so they build-up a pool of mounts to the same server which cause extra latency

Is there an environmental restriction in your application or organization for this?  Normally CIFS mounts can umounted easily in runtime.

At any rate... if I were in your shoes and really restricted to the options you propose, I would go with CIFS mounts through IPSEC tunnels.   

-geoff

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Geoff Galitz
Blankenheim NRW, Germany
http://www.galitz.org/
http://german-way.com/blog/