automountd(1M)

NAME

automountd — autofs mount/unmount daemon

SYNOPSIS

automountd[-TvnL] [-D name=value]

DESCRIPTION

automountd is an RPC server that answers file system mount and unmount requests from the autofs filesystem. It uses local files or name service maps to locate filesystems to be mounted. These maps are described with the automount command (see automount(1M)).

The automountd daemon is automatically invoked if the AUTOFS variable is set to 1 in /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf.

Options

-T: Trace. Expand each RPC call and display it to /var/adm/automount.log.
-v: Verbose. Log status messages to /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log.
-n: Turn off browsing for all autofs mount points. This option overrides the -browse autofs map option on the local host.
-L: Force all mounts to the local host to be NFS mounts instead of the default LOFS mounts. This is necessary for highly available NFS mounts.
-D name=value: Assign value to the indicated automount map substitution variable. These assignments cannot be used to substitute variables in the master map auto_master.

Tracing

While automountd is running, the signal SIGUSR2 can be sent to automountd to turn tracing on. It logs messages in /var/adm/automount.log. To turn tracing off, send the signal SIGUSR2 again.

RETURN VALUE

automountd returns:

0 successful
1 failure

EXAMPLES

To turn on tracing, enter:

/usr/sbin/automountd -T

automountd -T

No messages are displayed by the trace. Check the results in /var/adm/automount.log.

WARNINGS

Any filesystems that are being managed by autofs should never be manually mounted or unmounted. Even if the mount or unmount operation appears to complete successfully, the resulting change of state to the autofs managed filesystem can lead to disruptive or unpredictable results, including but not limited to: commands hanging or not returning expected results, and applications failing due to their dependencies on those mounted filesystems. A reboot may be necessary to resolve these issues.

AUTHOR

automountd was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

FILES

/etc/auto_master: master map for automounter
/var/adm/automount.log: log file for automountd
/usr/sbin/automountd: autofs daemon