NFS Services Administrator's Guide (B.11.31.05) September 2009

For more information on NFSv4, see nfsd(1m), mount_nfs(1m), nfsmapid(1m), and nfs4cbd(1m).
Deciding Between Standard-Mounted Directories and Automounted Directories
Before you mount any remote directories on a local system, decide whether you want each
directory to be standard-mounted or automounted. You can automount directories using AutoFS.
For more information on AutoFS, see Chapter 3: “Configuring and Administering AutoFS”
(page 49).
Table 2-7 lists the differences between the Standard-Mounted and the Automounted directories.
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.
Mounting Remote Directories
The mount command mounts a shared NFS directory from a remote system (NFS server).
36 Configuring and Administering NFS Services