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

/sbin/init.d/autofs start
AutoFS Configuration Prerequisites
Consider the following points before configuring AutoFS:
• Ensure that the local directory you configure as the mount-point is either empty
or non-existent. If the local directory you configured as the mount-point is not
empty, the local files or directories in it are hidden and become inaccessible if the
automounted filesystem is mounted over the local directory.
• Before you mount a remote directory on your system, you must configure the
remote system, where the directory is located, as an NFS server and export that
directory.
• If you change the mount options, the remote server name, or the remote directory
name for an existing direct or indirect mount while AutoFS is running, the changes
take effect only when the directory is mounted the next time. However, if you
change the local directory name in the direct or indirect map, or if you change the
master map, these changes do not take effect until you run the automount
command to force AutoFS to reread its maps.
Updating from Automounter to AutoFS
Automounter is a service that automatically mounts filesystems on reference. The
service enables you to access the filesystems without taking on the superuser role and
use the mount command. All filesystems appear to be immediately and continuously
available.
Starting with HP-UX 11i v2, Automounter is no longer supported. HP recommends
that you update to AutoFS. Updating to AutoFS offers the following advantages:
• AutoFS can be used to mount any type of filesystem.
• Automounter mounted the directories mounted under /tmp_mnt and created
symbolic links from the configured mount-points to the actual ones on /tmp_mnt.
In AutoFS, the configured mount-points are the actual mount-points.
• Automounter had to be killed and restarted when you wanted to modify maps.
In AutoFS, you need not stop AutoFS when you modify the maps. Run the
automount command after modifying the map for the change to take effect.
NOTE: Updating from Automounter to AutoFS does not require any user intervention.
The following steps are performed automatically to update all users from the
Automounter configuration to AutoFS:
AutoFS Configuration Prerequisites 75