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

Figure 3-3 Automounted Directories for On-Demand Mounting
/
/auto
/project
NFS Client sage
On-Demand Mounting
/specs
/reqmnts /designs
/
/export
/project
NFS Server thyme
/specs
/reqmnts /designs
Browsability for Indirect Maps
AutoFS now enables you to view the potential mount-points for indirect maps without mounting
each filesystem.
Consider the following scenario where the AutoFS master map, /etc/auto_master, and the
indirect map, /etc/auto_indirect, are on the NFS client, sage. Following are the contents
of the master map, the /etc/auto_master file, which contains a single indirect map entry:
# /etc/auto_master file
# local mount-point map name mount options
/nfs/desktop /etc/auto_indirect
Following are the contents of the indirect map, /etc/auto_indirect, which contains the local
mount-points on the client and the references to the directories on the server:
# /etc/auto_indirect file
# local mount-point mount options remote server:directory
/test -nosuid thyme:/export/project/test
/apps -nosuid basil:/export/apps
Enter the following commands to view the contents of the /nfs/desktop directory:
cd /nfs/desktop
ls
The ls command displays the following:
test apps
The test and apps subdirectories are the potential mount-points. However, they are not currently
mounted. To mount test and apps, enter the following commands:
cd /nfs/desktop/test
cd /nfs/desktop/apps
Concurrent Mount And Unmount
AutoFS performs concurrent mounts and unmounts, using the automountd daemon. For every
mount and unmount request sent to the automountd daemon, a thread is created. This enables
AutoFS to concurrently service multiple mounts and unmounts. This also prevents the service
from hanging if a server is unavailable.
58 Configuring and Administering AutoFS