NFS Services Administrator's Guide (B.11.31.03) August 2008

Table 2-7 Standard-Mounted Versus Automounted Directories
Automounted Directory (Using AutoFS)Standard-Mounted Directory
Automounted directories stay mounted until they are
left idle for 10 minutes. The 10 minute time interval is
the default value and is configurable.
The directory stays mounted. You do not have
to wait for it to be mounted after you issue a
read or write request.
A directory automounted with AutoFS is not mounted
until a user or a process requests access to it. As a result,
both your system and the NFS server are able to
complete the boot process before attempting to mount
the directory.
If a directory is configured to be
standard-mounted when your system boots,
and the NFS server for the directory is not
booted yet, system startup is delayed until the
NFS server becomes available. If your system
and the server are configured to mount
directories from each other at boot time,
standard mounts can cause both systems to
hang indefinitely.
You can manage AutoFS configuration files (maps)
centrally through NIS and LDAP.
You must maintain the configuration file for
standard mounts (/etc/fstab) separately on
each NFS client.
AutoFS allows you to use wildcard characters and
environment variables in configuration files (maps) as
shortcuts, when you are configuring many similar
automounts.
If you have to configure many similar standard
mounts, you must configure them individually,
because you cannot use wildcard characters or
environment variables when you configure
standard NFS mounts.
AutoFS allows you to configure a special “built-in” map
known as the -hosts map. This built-in map
automounts all the exported directories from any NFS
server on the network on your system whenever anyone
requests access to a directory on that server. The servers
can change which directories they export, but your
configuration remains valid.
Standard NFS mounts provide no shortcut for
configuring all available remote directories.
You must configure each directory separately.
If the NFS servers change the directories they
are exporting, you must change your local NFS
client configuration.
Enabling an NFS Client
To enable an NFS client, follow these steps:
1. In the /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file, set the value of NFS_CLIENT variable
to 1, as follows:
NFS_CLIENT=1
2. Enter the following command to run the NFS client startup script:
/sbin/init.d/nfs.client start
The NFS client startup script starts the necessary NFS client daemons, and mounts the
remote directories configured in the /etc/fstab file.
50 Configuring and Administering NFS Services