Enabling the Automounter

Enabling the Automounter

The automount command installs autofs mount points, and associates an automount map with each mount point. This requires that the automount daemon be running (automountd). When the automount daemon is initialized on the client, no exported directories are mounted by the clients—these are only mounted when a remote user attempts to access a file on the directory from a client. The connection eventually times out, in which case the exported directory is unmounted by the client.

Automounter maps usually use a network information service, like NIS+, to manage shared volumes, meaning that a single home directory for individual users can be provided on request from a single server, no matter which client machine they log in to. Connection and reconnection is handled by the automount daemon. If automount starts up and has nothing to mount or unmount, this is reported (and is quite normal):

burbank# automount
automount: no mounts
automount: no unmounts