NFS Services Administrator's Guide HP-UX 11i version 3

3 Configuring and Administering AutoFS
This chapter provides an overview of AutoFS and the AutoFS environment. It also describes
how to configure and administer AutoFS on a system running HP-UX 11i v3.
This chapter addresses the following topics:
• “Overview” (page 49)
• “Features ” (page 53)
• “Supported Filesystems” (page 55)
• “Supported Backends (Map Locations)” (page 55)
• “AutoFS Configuration Prerequisites” (page 57)
• “Updating from Automounter to AutoFS” (page 57)
• “AutoFS Configuration Changes” (page 58)
• “Enabling AutoFS” (page 60)
• “Notes on AutoFS Master Map” (page 60)
• “Deciding Between Direct and Indirect Automounts” (page 61)
• “Using Environment Variables as Shortcuts in AutoFS Maps” (page 66)
• “Using Wildcard Characters as Shortcuts in AutoFS Maps” (page 67)
• “Automounting Home Directories” (page 68)
• “Special Maps” (page 69)
• “Advanced AutoFS Administration” (page 71)
• “Modifying or Removing an Automounted Directory from a Map” (page 75)
• “Verifying the AutoFS Configuration” (page 75)
• “Disabling AutoFS” (page 76)
• “Restarting AutoFS” (page 76)
• “Troubleshooting AutoFS” (page 77)
Overview
AutoFS is a client-side service that automatically mounts remote filesystems. During system
startup, AutoFS is initialized by the automount command. The automount daemon, automountd,
runs continuously and mounts and unmounts remote directories as required.
When a client running automountd attempts to access a remote file or a remote directory,
automountd mounts it, if it has been configured. If the mounted remote filesystem is not accessed
for a certain period of time, it is automatically unmounted.
AutoFS uses maps to navigate the network. Maps define the mount-points that AutoFS will
mount. AutoFS can mount both directories and files. For more information on AutoFS maps, see
“Maps Overview” (page 51).
Following sections describe the different components of AutoFS that work together to
automatically mount and unmount filesystems, in detail.
AutoFS Filesystem
The AutoFS filesystem is a virtual filesystem that provides a directory structure to enable
automatic mounting of filesystems. It includes autofskd, a kernel-based process that periodically
cleans up mounts. The filesystem interacts with the automount command and the automountd
daemon to mount filesystems automatically.
Overview 49