Configuration Information
The installation process creates auto.master,
auto.misc, auto.smb, and
auto.net. Replace the
auto.master file with the following commands
as the root user:
mv /etc/autofs/auto.master /etc/autofs/auto.master.bak &&
cat > /etc/autofs/auto.master << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/autofs/auto.master
/media/auto /etc/autofs/auto.misc --ghost
#/home /etc/autofs/auto.home
# End /etc/autofs/auto.master
EOF
This file creates a new media directory,
/media/auto that will overlay any existing
directory of the same name. In this example, the file,
/etc/autofs/auto.misc, has a line:
cd -fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev :/dev/cdrom
that will mount a cdrom as /media/auto/cd if
that directory is accessed. The --ghost option tells
the automounter to create “ghost” versions (i.e. empty
directories) of all the mount points listed in the configuration file
regardless whether any of the file systems are actually mounted or not.
This is very convenient and highly recommended, because it will show
you the available auto-mountable file systems as existing directories,
even when their file systems aren't currently mounted. Without the
--ghost option, you'll have to remember the names of
the directories. As soon as you try to access one of them, the
directory will be created and the file system will be mounted. When
the file system gets unmounted again, the directory is destroyed too,
unless the --ghost option was given.
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
An alternative method would be to specify another automount
location such as /var/lib/auto/cdrom and create a
symbolic link from /media/cdrom to the automount location.
The auto.misc file must be configured to your
working hardware. The loaded configuration file should load your cdrom
if /dev/cdrom is active or it can be edited to
match your device setup. Examples for floppies are available in the
file and easily activated. Documentation for this file is available
using the man 5 autofs command.
In the second line, if enabled, a user's home directory would be
mounted via NFS upon login. The /etc/home.auto
would need to exist and have an entry similar to:
joe example.org:/export/home/joe
where the directory /export/home/joe is
exported via NFS from the system example.org. NFS shares
are covered on the next page.
This package could also be used to mount SMB shares, however that
feature is not configured in these instructions. For additional
configuration information, see the man pages for auto.master(5). There
are also web resources such as this AUTOFS
HOWTO available.
Boot Script
autofs installs its own
boot script, but it has no capability for logging or visual conformance
with other BLFS scripts. It will be replaced by an enhanced version.
Install the /etc/init.d/autofs
mount script included with the blfs-bootscripts-20230101
package.
make install-autofs
The time-out variable is set in
/etc/sysconfig/autofs.conf. The installed file sets
a default of 60 seconds of inactivity before unmounting the device. A
much shorter time may be necessary to protect buffer writing to a floppy
if users tend to remove the media prior to the timeout setting.
![[Caution]](../images/caution.png)