HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Configuration Management

Table 5-1 Deciding Which Type of NFS Mount to Use
You can use a standard NFS mount or the NFS automounter.
Standard NFS Mount— Use a standard NFS mount when you would like the mounted file system
to always remain mounted. This is useful when the mounted file system
will be frequently accessed.
Automounted NFS— Use an automatically mounted NFS file system when you want the file
system to be mounted only when it is actively being used. This is useful
when the file system being mounted is used infrequently.
□ AutoFS can be used to mount any type of file system.
□ With AutoFS, the configured mount points are the actual mount points.
□ You do not have to stop AutoFS to change your automounter maps.
The AutoFS daemon, automountd, runs continuously. When you
make a change to an automounter map, you run the automount
command, which reads the maps, then exits.
□ If you use the automounter, the file system will be mounted on the
client only when a user or process requests access to it. By default, it
will be unmounted after it has remained untouched for five minutes.
This default can be changed with the -t option of automount or by
setting a value for AUTOMOUNT_TIMEOUT in /etc/default/autofs.
□ If you use the automounter -hosts map, HP SMH will create a
directory (/net by default) under which all the file systems (on any
host on the network) which this client is allowed to import, become
available on demand.
□ AutoFS map management can be distributed, via a distributed name
service, thus not requiring the administrator to modify the /etc/
fstab file on every client.
For more information on how to use automounted file systems, see the NFS Services Administrator's
Guide.
NOTE:
You do not have to call the directory on the client by the same name it has on the server,
but it will make things simpler (more transparent) for your users if you do. If you are
running applications configured to use specific path names, you must make sure those
path names are the same on every system on which the applications run.
Standard-Mount a Shared File System Using Text-Based HP SMH
NOTE: The Disks and File Systems functional area performs standard mounts. The
Networking and Communications functional area performs automounts.
1. Log in to the client as superuser.
2. Start HP SMH, as described in “Starting Text-Based HP SMH” (page 30).
3. Enable the NFS client, if necessary, as described in “Enabling and Disabling the
NFS Server and Client” (page 76).
4. Navigate to the Add A New NFS File System screen.
80 Configuring Networking