AutoFS

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.

The AutoFS filesystem is a virtual filesystem that provides a directory structure for automatic mounting. It includes autofskd, a kernel-based process that periodically cleans up mounts.

The automountd daemon is a stateless daemon that accepts RPC requests from the AutoFS filesystem, to mount or unmount directories and filesystems.

Figure 1-2 “Interaction among AutoFS components” shows the interaction among the AutoFS components.

Figure 1-2 Interaction among AutoFS components

The automount command is invoked at system startup. It reads the AutoFS master map to create the initial set of AutoFS mount points in the internal mount table, /etc/mnttab. The automounted filesystems 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).