fstab vs autofs

Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan at gmail.com
Fri Nov 12 17:35:38 UTC 2010


On 12/11/10 10:47 AM, Tim wrote:
> 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.
>
It's basically a throwback to NIS, Sun's Network Information Service. 
The idea is that NIS (formerly Yellow Pages) maintains these maps as a 
distributed database so the network admin can more easily configure 
them. The whole thing is a PITA unless you really need it, which on a 
single locally-administered desktop you don't.

poc


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