NFS Services Administrator's Guide (B.11.31.02) January 2008

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 53)
• “Features ” (page 57)
• “Supported Filesystems” (page 59)
• “Supported Backends (Map Locations)” (page 60)
• “AutoFS Configuration Prerequisites” (page 61)
• “Updating from Automounter to AutoFS” (page 62)
• “AutoFS Configuration Changes” (page 63)
• “Enabling AutoFS” (page 64)
• “Notes on AutoFS Master Map” (page 65)
• “Deciding Between Direct and Indirect Automounts” (page 65)
• “Using Environment Variables as Shortcuts in AutoFS Maps” (page 70)
• “Using Wildcard Characters as Shortcuts in AutoFS Maps” (page 71)
• “Automounting Home Directories” (page 72)
• “Special Maps” (page 73)
• “Advanced AutoFS Administration” (page 76)
• “Modifying or Removing an Automounted Directory from a Map” (page 79)
• “Verifying the AutoFS Configuration” (page 80)
• “Disabling AutoFS” (page 80)
• “Restarting AutoFS” (page 81)
• “Troubleshooting AutoFS” (page 81)
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 55).
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 53