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

configuring a system as an NFS server, see “Configuring and Administering an
NFS Server” (page 27).
2. In the /etc/passwd file on the NFS clients, configure the home directory of each
user as the NFS mount-point, where the user’s home directory is mounted. For
example, if home directories are mounted under /home, Claire’s home directory
will be configured as /home/claire in the /etc/passwd file.
3. If you are using local files for maps, create a file called /etc/auto_home on the
NFS clients, and add an entry for each user.
sammy thyme:/export/home/& -nosuid
The ampersand (&) character takes the value of the user name in each line. User
Sammy’s home directory is physically located on host thyme in
/export/home/sammy.
4. If you are using local files for maps, add the following entry to the AutoFS master
map, /etc/auto_master, on the NFS clients:
/home /etc/auto_home
5. Enter the following command on each NFS client that uses these maps to force
AutoFS to reread the maps:
/usr/sbin/automount
Example of Automounting a User’s Home Directory
User Howard’s home directory is located on the NFS server, basil, where it is called
/export/home/howard. Each client in the network has the following entry in the
/etc/passwd file on all the systems in the network:
howard:*:700:70:Howard:/home/howard:/usr/bin/ksh
When Howard logs in to any NFS client, AutoFS recognizes /home as an AutoFS
mount-point, because it is configured in the master map, as follows:
/home auto_home
AutoFS reads the auto_home map to find out how to mount Howard’s home directory.
It finds the following line:
howard basil:/export/home/& -nosuid
AutoFS substitutes howard for the ampersand (&) character in that line:
howard basil:/export/home/howard -nosuid
AutoFS mounts /export/home/howard from server basil to the local mount-point
/home/howard on the NFS client. Figure 3-7 illustrates this configuration.
90 Configuring and Administering AutoFS