NFS Performance Tuning for HP-UX 11.0 and 11i Systems

nfs performance tuning for hp-ux 11.0 and 11i systems page 67

Notes:

Page 67July 22, 2002

What are Automount and AutoFS?

• Automatically mount filesystems when the directory path is

referenced

• Automatically unmount filesystems that are not in use

• Maps can be distributed via a directory server (i.e. NIS, NIS+) to

standardize the configuration of NFS client’s filesystem hierarchy

automount

autofs

Difference between 11.0 and 11i

AutoFS did not ship with HP-UX 11.0 – it required Extension

Pack 9808 (August 1998). AutoFS does ship with 11i.

An automounter is used to automatically mount and unmount filesystems on an NFS

client. The filesystems are mounted when the configured directory path is

referenced, and they are unmounted after a configurable idle period.

The maps used by automount and AutoFS can be maintained and distributed via

directory services such as NIS or NIS+. This helps ease the administrative burden

associated with standardizing the configuration of the filesystem layout on large

numbers of NFS client systems.

HP-UX has supported automatic mounting of filesystems for years using the original

automount daemon. AutoFS was introduced on HP-UX 10.20 in April 1997 as

part of the ACE 2.0 networking bundle. It was subsequently introduced to the 11.0

release on Extension Pack 9808, which shipped in August 1998.

AutoFS ships with HP-UX 11i.