New Features in AutoFS

This section discusses the new features that AutoFS supports on systems running HP-UX 11i v3.

LDAP Support
AutoFS supports LDAP directories for AutoFS map storage and distribution.
NFSv4 Support
AutoFS supports NFSv4 filesystems.
Secure NFS Support
AutoFS supports secure NFS filesystems.
IPv6 Support
AutoFS supports filesystem mounting over IPv6 transports.




	NOTE: AutoFS also provides the features that were initially supported by the Enhanced AutoFS product.

On-demand mounting of hierarchical filesystems - AutoFS mounts only those filesystems that users access. Other filesystems that are hierarchically related to these filesystems are mounted only when requested. This prevents unnecessary mounting and unmounting (mount storms), and improves performance.
Browsability - AutoFS enables a user to view the directories that can be mounted for indirect maps, without actually mounting each filesystem.
Concurrent mount or unmount - AutoFS performs concurrent mounts and unmounts, using the multi-threaded automountd daemon. This prevents services from hanging if a server is unavailable.
Reliable NFS ping - AutoFS supports the -retry=n mount option for an NFS map entry, to configure the ping timeout value.
NFS loopback mount - By default, AutoFS uses the Local FileSystems (LOFS) mounts for locally mounted filesystems. AutoFS provides an option to allow loopback NFS mounts for the local mount. This is a useful option in High Availability NFS environments.
Client-side Failover support - AutoFS enables a mounted NFS read-only filesystem to transparently switch over to an alternate server if the current server goes down.

Technical documentation