NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Introduction
AutoFS
Chapter 132
AutoFS
AutoFS is a client-side service that enables automatic mounting of
filesystems. It is initialized by the automount command, which runs
automatically when a system boots. The automount daemon,
automountd, runs continuously. It mounts and unmounts remote
directories as required.
When a client running automountd attempts to access a remote file or a
remote directory, the daemon mounts the filesystem. If the remote
filesystem is not accessed for a certain period of time, the filesystem is
automatically unmounted.
The AutoFS Environment
This section provides an overview of the AutoFS environment. The
AutoFS environment consists of the following components:
•The automount command
• The AutoFS filesystem
•The automountd daemon
The automount Command
This command installs the AutoFS mount points and associates an
automount map for each mount point. The AutoFS filesystem monitors
attempts to access directories within it, and notifies the automountd
daemon. The daemon locates a filesystem using the map, and then
mounts this filesystem at the point of reference within the AutoFS
filesystem. The automount map specifies the location of all the AutoFS
mount points.
NOTE You must run the automount command whenever the master map or the
direct maps are updated.