HP-UX 11i Release Notes (December 2000)

New and Changed Disk and File Management Features
Mounting and Unmounting NFS File Systems Automatically Using AutoFS
Chapter 9182
Mounting and Unmounting NFS File Systems
Automatically Using AutoFS
HP-UX 11i provides a daemon that mounts and unmounts NFS file
systems automatically. This feature is known as AutoFS.
AutoFS coexists with automount and performs the same functions as
automount, but has a new, more reliable design. Additionally, AutoFS
supports the NFS PV3 protocol whereas the automounter does not. The
automount command has been replaced with a shell script that will
either invoke the old automount daemon or the new AutoFS automount
command, depending on the variable AUTOFS in
/etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf.
• AUTOFS=1 causes /sbin/init.d/nfs.client to start the AutoFS
daemon (automountd) and run the AutoFS automount command.
• AUTOFS=0 starts the old automount daemon. This is the default on
newly installed or updated systems.
The old automount executable is located at:
/usr/lib/netsvc/fs/automount/automount
The new AutoFS executables are located at:
/usr/lib/netsvc/fs/autofs/automountd
/usr/lib/netsvc/fs/autofs/automount
When AutoFS is executed, a process used by its kernel code for kernel
thread support is also started. The autofs_proc process cannot be
killed, except by a shutdown of the system.
Impact
From an operational standpoint, AutoFS functions comparably to the old
automounter and returns the same values.
From the system administrator’s standpoint, however, AutoFS is started,
stopped, and updated differently than its predecessor. The nfs.client
start-script automatically starts and stops the correct daemons
depending on the value of AUTOFS in /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf.