NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Configuring and Administering NFS
Configuring and Administering AutoFS
Chapter 2 95
14. “To Create a Hierarchy of Automounter Maps” on page 120
15. “To Turn Off an Automounter Map with the -null Map” on page 121
16. “To Enable AutoFS” on page 121
17. “To Disable AutoFS” on page 122
18. “To Verify Your AutoFS Configuration” on page 122
19. “To Modify or Remove (Unmount) an Automounted Directory” on
page 124
NOTE SAM does not currently support AutoFS. To perform AutoFS tasks you
need to edit files and issue HP-UX commands as described in the
following sections.
Advantages of AutoFS Versus Automounter
Beginning with the HP-UX Extension Pack Release, August 1998 (for
HP-UX 11.0), the new automounting utility, AutoFS, is available in
addition to the pre-existing Automounter. You can configure your system
to use either Automounter or AutoFS. Automounter is the default on a
newly installed or updated system. However, you may choose to migrate
to AutoFS, since it has several advantages over Automounter:
• AutoFS can be used to mount any type of file system, including NFS
Protocol Version 3. (The pre-existing Automounter can be used only
for NFS PV2.)
• With AutoFS, the configured mount points are the actual mount
points. (The pre-existing Automounter mounts directories under
/tmp_mnt and creates symbolic links from the configured mount
points to the actual ones under /tmp_mnt.)
• You do not have to stop AutoFS to change your automounter maps.
The AutoFS daemon, automountd, runs continuously. When you
make a change to an automounter map, you run the automount
command, which reads the maps and then exits. (The pre-existing
automounter has to be killed and restarted whenever you make a
change to an automounter map.)