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

home directories. The automounts configured in an indirect map are mounted under the same
local parent directory.
Figure 3-4 shows the difference between direct mounts and indirect mounts on an NFS client.
Figure 3-4 Difference Between Direct Mounts and Indirect Mounts
In the Mounts in a Direct Map figure, mounts are configured in various places in the local
filesystem and not located under the same parent directory. In the Mounts in an Indirect Map
figure, all the mounts are configured under the same parent directory.
CAUTION: Any filesystems that are being managed by AutoFS should never be manually
mounted or unmounted. Even if the mount or unmount operation appears to complete
successfully, the resulting change of state to the AutoFS managed filesystem can lead to disruptive
or unpredictable results, including but not limited to: commands hanging or not returning
expected results, and applications failing due to their dependencies on those mounted filesystems.
A reboot may be necessary to resolve these issues.
Automounting a Remote Directory Using a Direct Map
This section describes how to automount a remote directory using a direct map.
To mount a remote directory using a direct map, follow these steps:
1. If you are using local files for maps, use an editor to edit the master map in the /etc
directory. The master map is commonly called /etc/auto_master. If you are using NIS,
open the master map on the NIS master server.
If you are using LDAP, the map must be modified on the LDAP server. For information on
modifying maps, see the LDAP-UX Client Services B.04.00 Administrator’s Guide (J4269-90064).
If the direct map you just modified is not listed in the master map, add the following entry
to the master map:
/- direct_map_name [mount_options]
2. If you are using local files for maps, use an editor to open or create a direct map in the /etc
directory. The direct map is commonly called /etc/auto_direct. Add an entry to the
direct map with the following syntax:
local_directory [mount_options] server:remote_directory
If you are using NIS or LDAP to manage maps, add an entry to the direct map on the NIS
master server or the LDAP directory.
3. If you are using NIS to manage maps, rebuild the maps and push them to the slave servers.
For more information on management of NIS maps, see the NIS Administrator’s Guide
(5991-2187).
4. On each host that uses the map you have modified, enter the following command to force
AutoFS to read the modified map:
/usr/sbin/automount
62 Configuring and Administering AutoFS