NFS Services Administrator's Guide (5900-1632, August 2011)

Features
This section discusses the features that AutoFS supports on systems running HP-UX 11i v3.
On-Demand Mounting
In HP-UX 11i v3, the filesystems being accessed are mounted automatically. The AutoFS file system
provides a mechanism for automatically mounting NFS file systems on demand and for automatically
unmounting these file systems after a predetermined period of inactivity.
NOTE: The AutoFS mount points must not be hierarchically related. Automount does not allow
an AutoFS mount point to be created within another AutoFS mount.
Consider the following scenario where the AutoFS master map, /etc/auto_master, and the
direct map, /etc/auto_direct, are on the NFS client, sage. Following are the contents of the
master map, the /etc/auto_master file, which contains a single direct map entry:
# /etc/auto_master file
# local mount-point map name mount options
/- /etc/auto_direct
Following are the contents of the direct map, /etc/auto_direct, which contains the local
mount-points on the client and the directory on the server:
# /etc/auto_direct file
# local mount-point mount options remote server:directory
/auto/project/specs/reqmnts -nosuid thyme:/export/projects/specs/reqmnts
/auto/project/specs/design -nosuid thyme:/export/projects/specs/design
The /auto/project/specs/reqmnts or /auto/project/specs/design subdirectory is
mounted only when it is accessed.
For example, a user on the NFS client, sage, enters the following command:
cd /auto/project/specs/reqmnts
Only the /auto/project/specs/reqmnts subdirectory is mounted.
Figure 8 (page 51) illustrates the automounted file structure after the user enters the command.
Figure 8 Automounted Directories for On-Demand Mounting
Browsability for Indirect Maps
AutoFS now enables you to view the potential mount-points for indirect maps without mounting
each filesystem.
Features 51