sharing the gnucash database via nfs

[Allan Gottlieb]

At Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:18:24 -0700 Cam Ellison <cam at ellisonpsychology.ca> wrote:

> Allan Gottlieb wrote:
>> Previously I did everything on a single machine (laptop) called
>> ajglap.
>>
>> I now have a spiffy monitor that requires a better graphics card so
>> I sometimes use a desktop called allan.
>>
>> At the moment on allan I type
>>    ssh -Y ajglap gnucash
>> and this works well.
>>
>> On ajglap I have ~/.gnucash and all is fine.
>>
>> On allan I have ajglap:~gottlieb nfs mounted on ~gottlieb/ajglap
>> and then created a symlink
>>     ~gottlieb/.gnucash --> ~gottlieb/ajglap/.gnucash
>>
>> On ajglap all remains well.
>>
>> On allan the symlink had essentially no effect: typing
>>    gnucash
>> results in my being asked the usual new-user questions.
>>
>> How should I have done this?
>>
> You should not have to symlink if you are using nfs. 
>
> First, decide on which machine you want to keep the data file - I 
> suggest that this should be the desktop, and it should also be the nfs 
> server (whichever machine is the nfs server must have the datafile).  
> Then install gnucash on both machines.  When you start gnucash on the 
> slave machine (your laptop), tell it to open the file you've placed on 
> the server.  Of course, you need first to mount the directory in which 
> you've placed it.
>
> In case you're wondering, that's what I do.  Works like a charm.

It didn't initially work for me, but your comments gave me to courage
to try further (even with daily backup I tread lightly on gnucash
since I use it so much).

My problem was that I was confusing
~/.gnucash/books/checking.gnucash with the actual data base
(~/share/financial/gnucash/checking.gnucash).
Once I did the open on the real database your soln worked perfectly.

Perhaps my symlinking would have worked as well.  I bailed out as soon
as I saw the dialog box for new users.

Anyway thank you very much; I really appreciate the help.

allan