Enhanced AutoFS Administrator's Guide

Configuring and Administering AutoFS
Mounting a Remote Directory
Chapter 3 37
Before you can mount a remote directory on your system, ensure that
you configure the remote system where the directory is located as an
NFS server. In addition, ensure that you export the directory.
You must enable AutoFS before any directory is automounted.
Automounted directories stay mounted until they are idle for 10 minutes.
You can change the 10-minute default time by adding the -t duration
option to the AUTOMOUNT_OPTIONS variable in the
/etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file or by running the automount command
with the -t option from the command line.
If you change the mount options, the remote server name, or the remote
directory name for an existing direct mount, while AutoFS is running,
the changes you made will take effect the next time the directory is
mounted. However, if you change the local directory name in the direct
map, or if you change the master map, these changes will not take effect
until you issue the automount command to force AutoFS to reread its
maps.
For more information on AutoFS configuration, see the automount(1M)
man page.
WARNING File systems under the management of AutoFS must always be
maintained through AutoFS utilities, automountd and automount.
Manually mounting and unmounting AutoFS managed file
systems can lead to disruptive or unpredictable results,
including but not limited to the following:
• Commands hang or do not return expected results.
• Applications fail due to their dependencies on these mounted
file systems.
Sample File Entries for NFS Direct Automounts
The following example contains sample lines from an AutoFS direct map
on the NFS client, sage. The sharp sign (#) indicates a comment line.
# /etc/auto_direct file
# local mount point mount options remote server:directory
/auto/project/specs -nosuid thyme:/export/project/specs
/auto/project/budget -nosuid basil:/export/FY94/proj1