NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Configuring and Administering NFS
Configuring and Administering the NFS Automounter
Chapter 2 93
If the ps command indicates the automounter is still active, make
sure all users are out of the automounted directories and then try
again. Do not restart the automounter until all automount processes
have terminated.
6. Issue the following command to start the automounter:
/usr/sbin/automount options
options is the list of options configured in the AUTO_OPTIONS
variable in the /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file. You can also source
the /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file, and then enter the automount
command as follows:
/usr/sbin/automount $AUTO_OPTIONS
If you attempt to kill the automounter while a user or process is working
in a directory containing indirect mount points (for example, if you have
the -hosts map mounted at /net, and a process is using /net as its
current working directory), the automounter creates a child process to
serve the directory while the parent process continues to try to shut
down. Therefore, you may notice that the ps command lists two
automount processes. When all automounted directories have been
unmounted, both processes terminate.
If you restart the automounter before these automount processes
terminate, the new process attempts to shut itself down, finds that a
directory is busy, and creates a child process. You then have three
automount processes.
If you attempt to kill the automounter while a user or process is using an
automounted directory underneath an automounter mount point (for
example, if you have the -hosts map mounted at /net, and a user’s
current directory is /net/basil/tools), the directory remains mounted
under /tmp_mnt, and the configured mount point and its symbolic link
are removed.
Even after you restart the automounter, the directory remains mounted
under /tmp_mnt, and the automounter will not unmount it. You can use
the umount(1M) command to unmount the directory under /tmp_mnt.
For more information, type man 1M automount at the HP-UX prompt.