I'm not sure where to put this, but I thought others might want it documented. I spent some time tonight figuring out how to use the NFS automounter that comes in NeXTSTEP, and here's how I got it working in NS 2.1.
I edited /etc/fstab with the entry I wanted to have. NeXT made a couple of changes: the regular mount command ignores items with a mountpoint of "/Net" and an option of "net"; these two things are what tell the automounter to operate on the mount.
Sample fstab entry:
HOSTNAME:/mount /Net nfs rw,net 0 0
With that fstab entry, the automounter mounts at /Net/HOSTNAME/mount. This directory can of course be accessed either via Terminal or GUI.
I'm mostly putting this here so that when I google it again in the future, I find it. :) I just thought others might find it useful too.
I may have missed this step when writing this documentation earlier, or maybe it is specific to OPENSTEP 4.2.
Tonight, I found that in OPENSTEP 4.2 I must also create hosts entries for the NFS server and the NeXT. I created a hosts file with these contents:
10.0.1.14 mynfsfiler.domainname.net
10.0.2.15 openstep42.domainname.net
Note that this is specifically for use with Previous (note the 10.0.2.15 address).
The NeXT still complains during boot of not having a network, even with ethernet connected, but once it is booted, I can access my NFS directories.