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automount is a command that installs autofs mount points and associates an automount map with each mount point. The autofs filesystem monitors attempts to access directories within it and notifies the automountd(1M) daemon. The daemon uses the map to locate a filesystem, which it then mounts at the point of reference within the autofs filesystem. You can assign a map to an autofs mount using an entry in the /etc/auto_master map or a direct map.
If the file system is not accessed within an appropriate interval (five minutes by default), the automountd daemon unmounts the file system.
The file /etc/auto_master
determines the locations of all autofs mount points. By default, this file
contains four entries:
# Master map for automounter#+auto_master/net -hosts -nosuid/home auto_home/xfn -xfnThe
A simple map entry (mapping) takes the form:
where key is the full pathname of the directory to mount when used in a direct map, or the simple name of a subdirectory in an indirect map. mount-options is a comma-separated list of mount options, and location specifies a file system from which the directory may be mounted. In the case of a simple NFS mount, location takes the form:
host is the name of the host from which to mount the file system (it may be omitted if the pathname refers to a local device on which the filesystem resides) and pathname is the pathname of the directory to mount.
If each location in the list shares the same pathname then a single location may be used with a comma-separated list of hostnames:
Requests for a server may be weighted, with the weighting factor appended to the server name as an integer in parentheses. Servers without a weighting are assumed to have a value of zero (most likely to be selected). Progressively higher values decrease the chance of being selected. In the example,
hosts alpha and bravo have the highest priority; host delta, the lowest.
Note: Server proximity takes priority in the selection process. In the example above, if the server delta is on the same network segment as the client, but the others are on different network segments, then delta will be selected -- the weighting value is ignored. The weighting has effect only when selecting between servers with the same network proximity.
In cases where each server has a different export point, you can still apply the weighting. For example:
A mapping can be continued across input lines by
escaping the NEWLINE
with a ‘\’ (backslash). Comments begin with a ’#’ (number
sign) and end at the subsequent NEWLINE
.
the & expands to jane.
The ’*’ (asterisk) character, when supplied as the key field, is recognized as the catch-all entry. Such an entry will match any key not previously matched. For instance, if the following entry appeared in the indirect map for /config:
this would allow automatic mounts in /config of any remote file system whose location could be specified as:
Client specific variables can be used within an automount map. For instance, if $HOST appeared within a map, automount would expand it to its current value for the client’s host name. Supported variables are:
| ARCH | The output of uname -m. | The architecture name. |
| For example "sun4" | ||
| CPU | The output of uname -p. | The processor type. |
| For example "sparc" | ||
| HOST | The output of uname -n. | The host name. For |
| example "biggles" | ||
| OSNAME | The output of uname -s. | The OS name. For |
| example "SunOS" | ||
| OSREL | The output of uname -r. | The OS release name. |
| For example "5.3" | ||
| OSVERS | The output of uname -v. | The OS version. For |
| example "beta1.0" |
If a reference needs to be protected from affixed characters, you can surround the variable name with ’{}’ (curly braces).
A multiple mount entry takes the form:
key [-mount-options] [[mountpoint] [-mount-options] location...]...
The initial /[mountpoint] is optional for the first mount and mandatory
for all subsequent mounts. The optional mountpoint is taken as a pathname
relative to the directory named by key. If mountpoint is omitted in the
first occurrence, a mountpoint of
/ (root) is implied.
Given an entry in the indirect map for /src:
beta -ro \ / svr1,svr2:/export/src/beta \ /1.0 svr1,svr2:/export/src/beta/1.0 \ /1.0/man svr1,svr2:/export/src/beta/1.0/man
automount would automatically mount /src/beta, /src/beta/1.0, and /src/beta/1.0/man, as needed, from either svr1 or svr2, whichever host is nearest and responds first.
The automounter assumes NFS mounts as a default filesystem type. Other filesystem types can be described using the fstype mount option. Other mount options specific to this filesystem type can be combined with the fstype option. The location field must contain information specific to the filesystem type. If the location field begins with a slash, a colon character must be prepended, for instance, to mount a CD filesystem:
cdrom -fstype=hsfs,ro :/dev/sr0
or to perform an autofs mount:
Mounts using CacheFS are most useful when applied to an entire map as map defaults. The following entry in the master map describes cached home directory mounts. It assumes the default location of the cache directory, /cache.
An indirect map allows you to specify mappings for the subdirectories you wish to mount under the directory indicated on the command line. In an indirect map, each key consists of a simple name that refers to one or more filesystems that are to be mounted as needed.
Entries in a direct map are associated directly with autofs mount points. Each key is the full pathname of an autofs mount point. The direct map as a whole is not associated with any single directory.
The contents of another map can be included within a map with an entry of the form
If mapname begins with a slash then it is assumed to be the pathname of a local file. Otherwise the location of the map is determined by the policy of the name service switch according to the entry for the automounter in /etc/nsswitch.conf, such as
If the name service is files then the name is assumed to be that of a local file in /etc. If the key being searched for is not found in the included map, the search continues with the next entry.
There are three special maps available: -hosts, -xfn, and -null. The -hosts map is used with the /net directory and assumes that the map key is the hostname of an NFS server. The automountd daemon dynamically constructs a map entry from the server’s list of exported filesystems. For instance a reference to /net/hermes/usr would initiate an automatic mount of all exported file systems from hermes that are mountable by the client. References to a directory under /net/hermes will refer to the corresponding directory relative to hermes root.
The -xfn map is used to mount the initial context of the Federated Naming Service (FNS ) namespace under the /xfn directory. For more information on FNS , see fns(5) , fns_initial_context(5) , fns_policies(5) , and the Federated Naming Service Guide.
The -null map, when indicated on the command line, cancels a previous map for the directory indicated. This is most useful in the /etc/auto_master for cancelling entries that would otherwise be inherited from the +auto_master include entry. To be effective, the -null entries must be inserted before the included map entry.
The master map is assumed to be called auto_master and its location is determined by the name service switch policy. Normally the master map is located initially as a local file /etc/auto_master.
Autofs mount points must not be hierarchically related. automount does not allow an autofs mount point to be created within another autofs mount.
Since each direct map entry results in a new autofs mount such maps should be kept short.
If a directory contains direct map mount points then an ls -l in the directory will force all the direct map mounts to occur.
Entries in both direct and indirect maps can be modified at any time. The new information is used when automountd next uses the map entry to do a mount.
New entries added to a master map or direct map will not be useful until the automount command is run to install them as new autofs mount points. New entries added to an indirect map may be used immediately.
An autofs directory associated with an indirect map shows only currently-mounted entries. This is a deliberate policy to avoid inadvertent mounting of every entry in a map via an ls -l of the directory.
The multiple location feature for NFS mounts allows the automountd daemon to choose the most appropriate server at mount time. While such a mount is in effect, the daemon does not monitor the status of the server. If the server crashes, automountd will not select an alternative server from the list.
Default mount options can be assigned to an entire map when specified as an optional third field in the master map. These options apply only to map entries that have no mount options.
The Network Information Service (NIS) was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP). The functionality of the two remains the same.