Creating a Hierarchy of AutoFS Maps

An organization made up of many departments may want to organize a shared automounted directory structure. In the following example, the shared top-level directory is called /org. The /org directory contains several subdirectories, listed in the auto_org AutoFS map. Each department administers its own AutoFS map for its subdirectory.

The AutoFS master map needs only a single entry for /org.

# auto_master map
# Directory           Map Name
 
/org                  auto_org

The auto_org map is as follows:

finance    -fstype=autofs    auto_finance
marketing  -fstype=autofs    auto_marketing
legal      -fstype=autofs    auto_legal
research   -fstype=autofs    auto_research
eng        -fstype=autofs    auto_eng

The engineering department’s map, auto_eng, is as follows:

releases                      bigiron:/export/releases
tools                         mickey,minnie:/export/tools
source      -fstype=autofs    auto_eng_source
projects     -fstype=autofs     auto_eng_projects

A user in the blackhole project within engineering may use the following path:

/org/eng/projects/blackhole

Beginning with the AutoFS mount at /org, the evaluation of this path dynamically creates additional AutoFS mounts at /org/eng and /org/eng/projects. As AutoFS mounts are created only when needed, changes to maps require no action to become visible at the user’s workstation.

	NOTE: You need to run the automount command if you make changes to the master map or a direct map.

Hierarchical AutoFS maps provide a framework within which large shared file systems can be organized. Together with NIS, which allows you to share information across administrative domains, the maintenance of the shared namespace can be effectively decentralized.