1 .\" Linux man page by B. James Phillippe, 1997 <bryan@Terran.ORG>
3 .\" This page was written to contribute to the Linux kernel autofs
4 .\" implementation by H. Peter Anvin (1997). It is loosly based on
5 .\" the documentation for mount(8) and amd(8) Linux manpages.
7 .\" This is free documentation.
9 .\" $Id: automount.8,v 1.8 2004/11/20 13:54:39 raven Exp $
11 .TH AUTOMOUNT 8 "14 Jan 2000"
13 automount \- configure mount points for autofs
15 \fBautomount\fP [\fIoptions\fP] \fImount-point\fP \fImap-type\fP[,\fIformat\fP] \fImap\fP [\fImap-options\fP]
17 The \fBautomount\fP program is used to configure a mount point for
18 autofs, the inlined Linux automounter. \fBautomount\fP works by
19 taking a base \fImount-point\fP and \fImap\fP file, and using these
20 (combined with other \fIoptions\fP) to automatically mount filesystems
21 within the base \fImount-point\fP when they are accessed in any way.
22 The filesystems are then autounmounted after a period of inactivity.
25 .I "\-p, \-\-pid-file"
26 Write the pid of the daemon to the specified file.
29 Set the minimum timeout, in seconds, until directories are unmounted.
30 The default is 5 minutes. Setting the timeout to zero disables
34 Enables printing of general status and progress messages.
37 Enables printing of general status and progress messages as well as
41 Request that directories in the automount be shown but not mounted
42 until accesssed. The wildcard map is not ghosted.
45 Display the version number, then exit.
47 \fBautomount\fP takes at least three arguments. Mandatory arguments
48 include \fImount-point\fP, \fImap-type\fP, and \fImap\fP. Both mandatory
49 and optional arguments are described below.
52 Base location for autofs-mounted filesystems to be attached. This is a
53 directory name that will be created (as with \fBmkdir \-p\fP) and later
54 when \fBautomount\fP terminates will be removed (as with \fBrmdir \-p\fP).
57 Type of map used for this invocation of \fBautomount\fP. The following are
62 The map is a regular text file.
65 The map is an executable program, which is passed a key on the command
66 line and returns an entry on stdout if successful.
69 The map is a NIS (YP) database.
72 The map is a NIS+ database.
75 The map is a hesiod database whose
77 entries are used for maps.
80 map names are of the form \fB[//servername/]basedn\fP, where the optional
81 \fBservername\fP is the name of the LDAP server to query, and \fBbasedn\fP is
82 the DN to do a subtree search under. Two LDAP schema are supported. The
83 automountMap and the nisMap (RFC 2307) object classes.
85 Entries in the automountMap schema are \fBautomount\fP objects in
86 the specified subtree, where the \fBcn\fP attribute is the key (the wildcard
87 key is "/"), and the \fBautomountInformation\fP attribute contains the
88 information used by the automounter. Documentation on the schema
89 used by this module is available online at
90 \fIhttp://docs.sun.com/source/806-4251-10/mapping.htm\fP.
92 RFC 2307 schema entries are \fBnisObject\fP objects and use the \fBcn\fP
93 attribute as the key and the \fBnisMapEntry\fP contains information used
98 Format of the map data; currently the only formats
99 recognized are \fBsun\fP, which is a subset of the Sun automounter map
100 format, and \fBhesiod\fP, for hesiod filesys entries. If the format is
101 left unspecified, it defaults to \fBsun\fP for all map types except
105 Location of mapfile to use. This is an absolute UNIX pathname in the case
106 for maps of types \fBfile\fP or \fBprogram\fP, and the name of a database
107 in the case for maps of type \fByp\fP, \fBnisplus\fP, or \fBhesiod\fP.
110 Any remaining command line arguments without leading dashes (\-) are
111 taken as options (\fI\-o\fP) to \fBmount\fP. Arguments with leading
112 dashes are considered options for the maps.
114 The \fBsun\fP format supports the following options:
117 .I "\-Dvariable=value"
118 Replace \fIvariable\fP with \fIvalue\fP in map substitutions.
121 Treat errors when mounting file systems as fatal. This is important when
122 multiple file systems should be mounted (`multimounts'). If this option
123 is given, no file system is mounted at all if at least one file system
127 If the \fBautomount\fP daemon catches signal USR1, it will unmount all
128 currently unused autofs-mounted filesystems and continue running
129 (forced expire). If it catches signals TERM or USR2 it will unmount
130 all unused autofs-mounted filesystems and exit if all filesystems were
131 unmounted. Busy filesystems will not be unmounted.
132 The daemon also responds to a HUP signal which triggers an update of
133 maps for which ghosting is implemented (currently FILE and NIS maps).
135 If the autofs directory itself is busy when the daemon is signalled
136 with an exit signal then the daemon will exit without unmounting the
137 autofs filesystem. The filesystem is left in a catatonic
138 (non-functional) state, and can be unmounted when it becomes unused.
143 A whole slew of missing desirable features (see \fBTODO\fP file).
145 The documentation leaves a lot to be desired.
147 Please report other bugs along with a detailed description to
148 <autofs@linux.kernel.org>. For instructions on how to join the list
149 and for archives visit http://linux.kernel.org/mailman/listinfo/autofs
151 H. Peter Anvin <hpa@transmeta.com>