Enhanced AutoFS Administrator's Guide

Conﬁguring and Administering AutoFS

Deciding Between Direct and Indirect NFS Automounts

Chapter 3 33

How AutoFS Sets Up Direct and Indirect Mounts

The automounts conﬁgured in a direct map may be mounted in various

places in the local ﬁle system; they do not have to be located under the

same parent directory.

The automounts conﬁgured in an indirect map are all mounted under the

same local parent directory.

Disadvantage: If you add or

remove mounts in a direct map,

or if you change the local mount

point for an existing mount in a

direct map, you have to force

AutoFS to reread its maps.

Advantage: If you modify an

indirect map, the changes are

visible when AutoFS mounts the

directory next time. Therefore,

you do not have to force AutoFS to

reread its maps.

Disadvantage: When automount

reads a direct map, it creates an

entry for each automounted

directory in the internal mount

table, /etc/mnttab. This can

cause the mount table to become

very large.

Advantage: When automount

reads an indirect map, it creates

only one entry for the entire map

in the internal mount table,

/etc/mnttab. Additional entries

are created when directories are

actually mounted. The mount

table does not occupy unnecessary

space because only mounted

directories appear in it.

Table 3-3 Direct Versus Indirect AutoFS Map (Continued)

Direct Map Indirect Map