NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Configuring and Administering NFS
Configuring and Administering the NFS Automounter
Chapter 2 87
Subdirectory notation creates some very confusing path names on the
local host. The following example shows how the automounter sets up
mounts using subdirectory notation.
Assume that the indirect map shown above is called auto.dogs and is
listed in the master map as follows:
/pets/dogs auto.dogs
Suppose someone requests access to a file in the hunting_dogs directory,
and while it is mounted, someone else requests access to a file in the
local_breeders directory. If you use subdirectory notation, the
automounter performs the following steps:
1. Mounts remote directory /breeders from NFS server akcserver
onto local directory /tmp_mnt/breeders/hunting_dogs.
The path to the mount point is the path name on the server, and the
mount point itself is the subdirectory name that was requested on
the local host. The subdirectories hunting_dogs and
local_breeders are underneath this mount point.
2. Creates a symbolic link from /pets/dogs/hunting_dogs to
/tmp_mnt/breeders/hunting_dogs/hunting_dogs.
3. Creates a symbolic link from /pets/dogs/local_breeders to
/tmp_mnt/breeders/hunting_dogs/local_breeders.
Without subdirectory notation, the automounter performs the following
steps:
1. Mounts remote directory /breeders/retrievers from NFS server
akcserver onto local directory
/tmp_mnt/pets/dogs/hunting_dogs.
2. Creates a symbolic link from /pets/dogs/hunting_dogs to
/tmp_mnt/pets/dogs/hunting_dogs.
3. Mounts remote directory /breeders/SFbayarea from NFS server
akcserver onto local directory
/tmp_mnt/pets/dogs/local_breeders.
4. Creates a symbolic link from /pets/dogs/local_breeders to
/tmp_mnt/pets/dogs/local_breeders.