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

* basil:/export/home/&

charlie thyme:/export/home/charlie

AutoFS attempts to mount /export/home/charlie from the host, basil. If the asterisk is a

match for charlie, AutoFS looks no further and never reads the second line. However, if the

/etc/auto_home map contains the following lines,

charlie thyme:/export/home/charlie

* basil:/export/home/&

AutoFS mounts Charlie’s home directory from host thyme and other home directories from host

basil.

Automounting Home Directories

To automount users’ home directories, follow these steps:

1. Ensure that the systems where the users’ home directories are located are set up as NFS servers

and are exporting the home directories. For more information on configuring a system as an

NFS server, see “Configuring and Administering an NFS Server” (page 19).

2. In the /etc/passwd file on the NFS clients, configure the home directory of each user as

the NFS mount-point, where the user’s home directory is mounted. For example, if home

directories are mounted under /home, Claire’s home directory will be configured as

/home/claire in the /etc/passwd file.

3. If you are using local files for maps, create a file called /etc/auto_home on the NFS clients,

and add an entry for each user.

sammy thyme:/export/home/& -nosuid

The ampersand (&) character takes the value of the user name in each line. User Sammy’s

home directory is physically located on host thyme in /export/home/sammy.

4. If you are using local files for maps, add the following entry to the AutoFS master map,

/etc/auto_master, on the NFS clients:

/home /etc/auto_home

5. Enter the following command on each NFS client that uses these maps to force AutoFS to

reread the maps:

/usr/sbin/automount

Example of Automounting a User’s Home Directory

User Howard’s home directory is located on the NFS server, basil, where it is called

/export/home/howard. Each client in the network has the following entry in the /etc/passwd

file on all the systems in the network:

howard:*:700:70:Howard:/home/howard:/usr/bin/ksh

When Howard logs in to any NFS client, AutoFS recognizes /home as an AutoFS mount-point,

because it is configured in the master map, as follows:

/home auto_home

AutoFS reads the auto_home map to find out how to mount Howard’s home directory. It finds the