fstab vs autofs

Tim ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au
Fri Nov 12 15:17:09 UTC 2010


On Fri, 2010-11-12 at 14:30 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> What exactly is the advantage of using autofs
> over an entry or entries in /etc/fstab ?

Autofs only mounts the device when you/something requests access to the
mount point.  fstab will try mounting it at boot time, unless you add a
noauto parameter.  It's somewhat easier to add non-default options to
fstab file, than tuning autofs to your requirements.  Always-mounted
network shares can be a problem if they're not reachable when you boot
up.

> Incidentally, the sample /etc/auto.master in Fedora-14
> ends with the line
> 	+auto.master
> but I've been unable to find any explanation of this.

See man auto.master

       For indirect maps access is by using the path scheme:

       /mount-point/key

       where  mount-point  is one of the entries listed in the master map. The
       key is a single directory component and is matched against  entries  in
       the map given in the entry (See autofs(5)).

       Additionally,  a  map may be included from its source as if it were it-
       self present in the master map by including a line of the form: + [map-
       type,format:]map[options] and automount(8) will process the map accord-
       ing to the specification described below for map entries.

That sort-of explains it, even if not very understandable.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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