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

mounted when not in use, use the -t option of the automount command. For more information
on the different options supported by automount, see automount(1M) and automountd(1M).
CAUTION: You must maintain filesystems managed by AutoFS, by using the automountd
and automount utilities. Manually mounting and unmounting file systems managed by AutoFS
can cause disruptive or unpredictable results, including but not limited to commands hanging
or not returning expected results. Applications can also fail because of their dependencies on
these mounted filesystems.
Maps Overview
Maps define the mount-points that AutoFS will mount. Maps are available either locally or
through a distributed network Name Service, such as NIS or LDAP. AutoFS supports different
types of maps.
Table 3-1 lists the different types of maps supported by AutoFS.
Table 3-1 Types of AutoFS Maps
DescriptionType of Map
A master list of maps, which associates a directory with a map. The automount
command reads the master map at system startup to create the initial set of AutoFS
mounts.
Master Map
A direct map is an entry in the AutoFS master map. In a direct map, there exists a
direct association between the mount-point on a client and a directory on the server.
Direct Map
An indirect map is an entry in the AutoFS master map. In an indirect map, there exists
an association between keys representing mount-points on the client and directories
on the server. A key is a representation of the first field of a map entry.
Indirect Map
An executable map is a map whose entries are generated dynamically by a program
or a script. Local maps that have the execute bit set in their file permissions will be
executed by the AutoFS daemon. A direct map cannot be made executable.
Executable Map
Special Maps are of two types namely, -hosts and -null.
Special Map
An included map is a map that is included within another map. The entries of the
included map are read as if they are part of the existing map.
Included Map
Figure 3-2 “AutoFS” displays a sample AutoFS network.
Maps Overview 51