NFS mount and the NFS automounter

[A.K.]

Hi guys,
Can some refer me to the right documentation?
What is the difference between NFS mount and the NFS automounter
When its better to use one over the other

Thank you ,
A.K.

[Pete Randall]

Automounter is used to make NFS mounts automatically. The two work in conjunction with each other. Instead of manually mounting an NFS directory via the mount command, automount can be configured to make the mount when a reference is made to the mount point.


Pete

[S.K. Chan · Accepted solution]

The HP doc "Installaing and Administering NFS Services" would be the one you need. On top of that I recommend the O'Reilly book "Managing NFS and NIS".

http://www.docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B1031-90048/B1031-90048_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B1031-90048/00/00/12-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B1031-90048/00/00/12-toc.html&searchterms=automount&queryid=20030407-105923

The automounter (AutoFS) uses NFS to do automatic mounting of FS and automatic unmounting of FS when not in use as oppose to the traditional NFS hard mounts which have to be "pre-defined" in /etc/fstab file for it to happen. The NFS automounter/autoFS is definately recommended because it does not keep the mount points if not being used, hence reduces system resources.

[Ramkumar Devanathan]

A.K.

the man pages seem to be a good point to start.

man nfs
man automount

then, of course, what little i know of these 2. typically the automount works in a case where you traverse (cd) into a directory cd /net/hostA. when you cd to this, the exported shares from hostA become available to you on demand. They are 'automounted' and remain that way as long as you don't traverse out of the directory structure on the mount. however if left free for a while, the mount gets automaticall unmounted, or upon a shutdown/reboot. also, the mounts are mounted with the Autofs option - meaning that the mounted fs is decided at the time of mounting. the automount daemon (/usr/sbin/automount) provides this auto mount facility.

The non auto - nfs mounts however are the normal mounts that you specify in /etc/fstab and which are not mounted on demand. they are mounted at boot-time or when the mount command is run. these are mounted unless explicitly stated, with the specified fs option only. also, these are unmounted only upon shutdown or when prompted by the root thro' the umount command.

hope this helps.

- ramd.

[Kevin Wright]

quite simply, if you run automounter, you can setup direct and indirect mount points from the /etc/auto_master file to mount NFS filesystems automatically. Otherwise, you have to issue the mount command.