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

NFS Loopback Mount
By default, AutoFS uses the Loopback Filesystem (LOFS) mount for locally mounted filesystems.
AutoFS provides an option to enable loopback NFS mounts for the local mount. Use the
automountd command with the -L option to enable the loopback NFS mounts for locally
mounted filesystems. This option is useful when AutoFS is running on a node that is part of a
High Availability NFS environment.
Client-side Failover Support
AutoFS enables a mounted NFS read-only filesystem to transparently switch over to an alternate
server if the current server goes down. AutoFS can make use of this feature if the NFS client
supports client-side failover. For more information on client-side failover, see “Enabling
Client-Side Failover” (page 41).
Secure NFS Support
AutoFS supports secure NFS filesystems if the NFS client supports mounting of secure directories.
For more information on Secure NFS, see “Secure Sharing of Directories ” (page 28).
Reliable NFS Ping
In a congested network, the default timeout for an NFS ping may be too short, possibly resulting
in failed mounts. AutoFS supports the -retry= n mount option for an NFS map entry to configure
the ping timeout value. Increasing the value raises the probability for the ping to succeed.
Supported Filesystems
AutoFS enables you to mount different types of filesystems. To mount the filesystems, use the
fstypemount option, and specify the location field of the map entry. Following is a list of
supported filesystems and the appropriate map entry:
AutoFS mount-point -fstype=autofs autofs_map_name
NOTE: You can specify another AutoFS map name in the location field of the
map-entry. This would enable AutoFS to trigger other AutoFS mounts.
CacheFS mount-point -fstype=cachefs, cachedir=/cache_directory, backfstype=nfs
server:/source_directory
NOTE: You must ensure that the back-end filesystem, for example NFS, must be
made available. Also, the cache directory must have been created.
HFS mount-point -fstype=hfs :/device_path
NFS mount-point server:/source directory
NOTE: You must ensure that the source directory has been created and exported
on the server.
VxFS mount-point /source_directory
NOTE: You must ensure that the source directory has been created.
NOTE: The examples specified are for AutoFS maps stored in plain files. You can use specific
tools to convert the maps to other supported backends, such as NIS or LDAP.
To mount a CD-ROM device, follow these steps:
Supported Filesystems 59