One drawback of using /etc/fstab is that, regardless of how infrequently a user accesses the NFS mounted file system, the system must dedicate resources to keep the mounted file system in place. This is not a problem with one or two mounts, but when the system is maintaining mounts to many systems at one time, overall system performance can be affected. An alternative to /etc/fstab is to use the kernel-based automount utility. An automounter consists of two components:
a kernel module that implements a file system, and
a user-space daemon that performs all of the other functions.
The automount utility can mount and unmount NFS file systems automatically (on-demand mounting), therefore saving system resources. It can be used to mount other file systems including AFS, SMBFS, CIFS, and local file systems.
Important
The nfs-utils package is now a part of both the 'NFS file server' and the 'Network File System Client' groups. As such, it is no longer installed by default with the Base group. Ensure that nfs-utils is installed on the system first before attempting to automount an NFS share.
autofs is also part of the 'Network File System Client' group.
autofs uses /etc/auto.master (master map) as its default primary configuration file. This can be changed to use another supported network source and name using the autofs configuration (in /etc/sysconfig/autofs) in conjunction with the Name Service Switch (NSS) mechanism. An instance of the autofs version 4 daemon was run for each mount point configured in the master map and so it could be run manually from the command line for any given mount point. This is not possible with autofs version 5, because it uses a single daemon to manage all configured mount points; as such, all automounts must be configured in the master map. This is in line with the usual requirements of other industry standard automounters. Mount point, hostname, exported directory, and options can all be specified in a set of files (or other supported network sources) rather than configuring them manually for each host.
8.3.1.Improvements in autofs Version 5 over Version 4
autofs version 5 features the following enhancements over version 4:
- Direct map support
Direct maps in
autofsprovide a mechanism to automatically mount file systems at arbitrary points in the file system hierarchy. A direct map is denoted by a mount point of/-in the master map. Entries in a direct map contain an absolute path name as a key (instead of the relative path names used in indirect maps).- Lazy mount and unmount support
Multi-mount map entries describe a hierarchy of mount points under a single key. A good example of this is the
-hostsmap, commonly used for automounting all exports from a host under/net/hostas a multi-mount map entry. When using the-hostsmap, anlsof/net/hostwill mount autofs trigger mounts for each export from host. These will then mount and expire them as they are accessed. This can greatly reduce the number of active mounts needed when accessing a server with a large number of exports.- Enhanced LDAP support
The
autofsconfiguration file (/etc/sysconfig/autofs) provides a mechanism to specify theautofsschema that a site implements, thus precluding the need to determine this via trial and error in the application itself. In addition, authenticated binds to the LDAP server are now supported, using most mechanisms supported by the common LDAP server implementations. A new configuration file has been added for this support:/etc/autofs_ldap_auth.conf. The default configuration file is self-documenting, and uses an XML format.- Proper use of the Name Service Switch (
nsswitch) configuration. The Name Service Switch configuration file exists to provide a means of determining from where specific configuration data comes. The reason for this configuration is to allow administrators the flexibility of using the back-end database of choice, while maintaining a uniform software interface to access the data. While the version 4 automounter is becoming increasingly better at handling the NSS configuration, it is still not complete. Autofs version 5, on the other hand, is a complete implementation.
For more information on the supported syntax of this file, see
man nsswitch.conf. Not all NSS databases are valid map sources and the parser will reject ones that are invalid. Valid sources are files,yp,nis,nisplus,ldap, andhesiod.- Multiple master map entries per autofs mount point
One thing that is frequently used but not yet mentioned is the handling of multiple master map entries for the direct mount point
/-. The map keys for each entry are merged and behave as one map.Example8.2.Multiple Master Map Entries per autofs Mount Point
Following is an example in the connectathon test maps for the direct mounts:
/- /tmp/auto_dcthon/- /tmp/auto_test3_direct/- /tmp/auto_test4_direct
8.3.2.Configuring autofs
The primary configuration file for the automounter is /etc/auto.master, also referred to as the master map which may be changed as described in the Section8.3.1, “Improvements in autofs Version 5 over Version 4”. The master map lists autofs-controlled mount points on the system, and their corresponding configuration files or network sources known as automount maps. The format of the master map is as follows:
mount-point map-name options
The variables used in this format are:
- mount-point
The
autofsmount point,/home, for example.- map-name
The name of a map source which contains a list of mount points, and the file system location from which those mount points should be mounted.
- options
If supplied, these applies to all entries in the given map provided they do not themselves have options specified. This behavior is different from
autofsversion 4 where options were cumulative. This has been changed to implement mixed environment compatibility.
Example8.3./etc/auto.master File
The following is a sample line from /etc/auto.master file (displayed with cat /etc/auto.master):
/home /etc/auto.misc
The general format of maps is similar to the master map, however the "options" appear between the mount point and the location instead of at the end of the entry as in the master map:
mount-point [options] location
The variables used in this format are:
- mount-point
This refers to the
autofsmount point. This can be a single directory name for an indirect mount or the full path of the mount point for direct mounts. Each direct and indirect map entry key (mount-point) may be followed by a space separated list of offset directories (subdirectory names each beginning with a/) making them what is known as a multi-mount entry.- options
Whenever supplied, these are the mount options for the map entries that do not specify their own options.
- location
This refers to the file system location such as a local file system path (preceded with the Sun map format escape character ":" for map names beginning with
/), an NFS file system or other valid file system location.
The following is a sample of contents from a map file (for example, /etc/auto.misc):
payroll -fstype=nfs personnel:/dev/hda3sales -fstype=ext3 :/dev/hda4
The first column in a map file indicates the autofs mount point (sales and payroll from the server called personnel). The second column indicates the options for the autofs mount while the third column indicates the source of the mount. Following the given configuration, the autofs mount points will be /home/payroll and /home/sales. The -fstype= option is often omitted and is generally not needed for correct operation.
The automounter create the directories if they do not exist. If the directories exist before the automounter was started, the automounter will not remove them when it exits.
To start the automount daemon, use the following command:
#systemctl start autofs
To restart the automount daemon, use the following command:
#systemctl restart autofs
Using the given configuration, if a process requires access to an autofs unmounted directory such as /home/payroll/2006/July.sxc, the automount daemon automatically mounts the directory. If a timeout is specified, the directory is automatically unmounted if the directory is not accessed for the timeout period.
To view the status of the automount daemon, use the following command:
#systemctl status autofs
8.3.3.Overriding or Augmenting Site Configuration Files
It can be useful to override site defaults for a specific mount point on a client system. For example, consider the following conditions:
Automounter maps are stored in NIS and the
/etc/nsswitch.conffile has the following directive:automount: files nis
The
auto.masterfile contains:+auto.master
The NIS
auto.mastermap file contains:/home auto.home
The NIS
auto.homemap contains:beth fileserver.example.com:/export/home/bethjoe fileserver.example.com:/export/home/joe* fileserver.example.com:/export/home/&
The file map
/etc/auto.homedoes not exist.
Given these conditions, let's assume that the client system needs to override the NIS map auto.home and mount home directories from a different server. In this case, the client needs to use the following /etc/auto.master map:
/home /etc/auto.home+auto.master
The /etc/auto.home map contains the entry:
* labserver.example.com:/export/home/&
Because the automounter only processes the first occurrence of a mount point, /home contain the contents of /etc/auto.home instead of the NIS auto.home map.
Alternatively, to augment the site-wide auto.home map with just a few entries, create an /etc/auto.home file map, and in it put the new entries. At the end, include the NIS auto.home map. Then the /etc/auto.home file map looks similar to:
mydir someserver:/export/mydir+auto.home
With these NIS auto.home map conditions, the ls /home command outputs:
beth joe mydir
This last example works as expected because autofs does not include the contents of a file map of the same name as the one it is reading. As such, autofs moves on to the next map source in the nsswitch configuration.
8.3.4.Using LDAP to Store Automounter Maps
LDAP client libraries must be installed on all systems configured to retrieve automounter maps from LDAP. On RedHat EnterpriseLinux, the openldap package should be installed automatically as a dependency of the automounter. To configure LDAP access, modify /etc/openldap/ldap.conf. Ensure that BASE, URI, and schema are set appropriately for your site.
The most recently established schema for storing automount maps in LDAP is described by rfc2307bis. To use this schema it is necessary to set it in the autofs configuration (/etc/sysconfig/autofs) by removing the comment characters from the schema definition. For example:
Example8.4.Setting autofs Configuration
DEFAULT_MAP_OBJECT_CLASS="automountMap"DEFAULT_ENTRY_OBJECT_CLASS="automount"DEFAULT_MAP_ATTRIBUTE="automountMapName"DEFAULT_ENTRY_ATTRIBUTE="automountKey"DEFAULT_VALUE_ATTRIBUTE="automountInformation"
Ensure that these are the only schema entries not commented in the configuration. The automountKey replaces the cn attribute in the rfc2307bis schema. Following is an example of an LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) configuration:
Example8.5.LDF Configuration
# extended LDIF## LDAPv3# base <> with scope subtree# filter: (&(objectclass=automountMap)(automountMapName=auto.master))# requesting: ALL## auto.master, example.comdn: automountMapName=auto.master,dc=example,dc=comobjectClass: topobjectClass: automountMapautomountMapName: auto.master# extended LDIF## LDAPv3# base <automountMapName=auto.master,dc=example,dc=com> with scope subtree# filter: (objectclass=automount)# requesting: ALL## /home, auto.master, example.comdn: automountMapName=auto.master,dc=example,dc=comobjectClass: automountcn: /homeautomountKey: /homeautomountInformation: auto.home# extended LDIF## LDAPv3# base <> with scope subtree# filter: (&(objectclass=automountMap)(automountMapName=auto.home))# requesting: ALL## auto.home, example.comdn: automountMapName=auto.home,dc=example,dc=comobjectClass: automountMapautomountMapName: auto.home# extended LDIF## LDAPv3# base <automountMapName=auto.home,dc=example,dc=com> with scope subtree# filter: (objectclass=automount)# requesting: ALL## foo, auto.home, example.comdn: automountKey=foo,automountMapName=auto.home,dc=example,dc=comobjectClass: automountautomountKey: fooautomountInformation: filer.example.com:/export/foo# /, auto.home, example.comdn: automountKey=/,automountMapName=auto.home,dc=example,dc=comobjectClass: automountautomountKey: /automountInformation: filer.example.com:/export/&
