NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Introduction
AutoFS
Chapter 134
are not mounted automatically at startup. The automounted filesystems
are points under which filesystems are mounted when users request
access to them.
When AutoFS receives a request to mount a filesystem, it calls the
automountd daemon, which mounts the requested filesystem. AutoFS
mounts the filesystems at the configured mount points.
The automountd daemon is independent of the automount command.
This separation enables you to add, delete, or modify the AutoFS map
information, without stopping and restarting the automountd daemon.
If changes to the AutoFS mount points are required, you can modify the
set of mount points by modifying AutoFS maps and by running the
automount command to read them, and modify the mount table.
If an automounted filesystem remains idle for a specified period of time
(the default is 10 minutes), AutoFS unmounts it. For more information
on AutoFS, see automount (1M) and automountd (1M).