Automounting Home Directories

To automount users’ home directories, follow these steps:

Ensure that the systems where the users’ home directories are located are set up as NFS servers and are exporting the home directories. For more information on configuring a system as an NFS server, see “Configuring and Administering an NFS Server”.
In the /etc/passwd file on the NFS clients, configure the home directory of each user as the NFS mount-point, where the user’s home directory is mounted. For example, if home directories are mounted under /home, Claire’s home directory will be configured as /home/claire in the /etc/passwd file.
If you are using local files for maps, create a file called /etc/auto_home on the NFS clients, and add an entry for each user.
sammy thyme:/export/home/& -nosuid
The ampersand (&) character takes the value of the user name in each line. User Sammy’s home directory is physically located on host thyme in /export/home/sammy.
If you are using local files for maps, add the following entry to the AutoFS master map, /etc/auto_master, on the NFS clients:
/home /etc/auto_home
Enter the following command on each NFS client that uses these maps to force AutoFS to reread the maps:
/usr/sbin/automount

Example of Automounting a User’s Home Directory

User Howard’s home directory is located on the NFS server, basil, where it is called /export/home/howard. Each client in the network has the following entry in the /etc/passwd file on all the systems in the network:

howard:*:700:70:Howard:/home/howard:/usr/bin/ksh

When Howard logs in to any NFS client, AutoFS recognizes /home as an AutoFS mount-point, because it is configured in the master map, as follows:

/home auto_home

AutoFS reads the auto_home map to find out how to mount Howard’s home directory. It finds the following line:

howard basil:/export/home/& -nosuid

AutoFS substitutes howard for the ampersand (&) character in that line:

howard basil:/export/home/howard -nosuid

AutoFS mounts /export/home/howard from server basil to the local mount-point /home/howard on the NFS client. Figure 3-7 illustrates this configuration.

Figure 3-7 Home Directories Automounted with Wildcards

Automounting Home Directories

Technical documentation

» Table of Contents

» Index

Example of Automounting a User’s Home Directory