NFS Services Administrator's Guide (B.11.31.04) March 2009

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 65)
• “Features ” (page 69)
• “Supported Filesystems” (page 72)
• “Supported Backends (Map Locations)” (page 73)
• “AutoFS Configuration Prerequisites” (page 75)
• “Updating from Automounter to AutoFS” (page 75)
• “AutoFS Configuration Changes” (page 76)
• “Enabling AutoFS” (page 79)
• “Notes on AutoFS Master Map” (page 79)
• “Deciding Between Direct and Indirect Automounts” (page 80)
• “Using Environment Variables as Shortcuts in AutoFS Maps” (page 87)
• “Using Wildcard Characters as Shortcuts in AutoFS Maps” (page 88)
• “Automounting Home Directories” (page 89)
• “Special Maps” (page 91)
• “Advanced AutoFS Administration” (page 94)
• “Modifying or Removing an Automounted Directory from a Map” (page 98)
• “Verifying the AutoFS Configuration” (page 99)
• “Disabling AutoFS” (page 100)
• “Restarting AutoFS” (page 100)
• “Troubleshooting AutoFS” (page 101)
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 67).
Overview 65