Using the NFS automounter

Using the NFS automounter

Resources shared through NFS^® can be mounted using a method called automounting. The automount program (located in /usr/lib/nfs) mounts and unmounts remote directories on an as-needed basis. Whenever a user on a client running the automounter invokes a command that needs to access a remote file, the shared resource to which that file belongs is mounted automatically. When a certain amount of time has elapsed without the resource being accessed, it is automatically unmounted. For additional information on automount, see the automount(1Mnfs) manual page.

Once the automounter is invoked, an administrator does not have to set up automatic mounting with the vfstab file, nor use the mount and umount commands at the command line. All mounting is done automatically and transparently.

NOTE: Mounting some resources with automount does not exclude the possibility of mounting others with mount; in fact, in a diskless machine you must mount root (/) with mount.

This topic explains how the automounter works and provides instructions for setting it up.