AUTOFS(8)

✨ AUTOFS(8) — like, the autofs manual page but make it make sense ✨

okay bestie, buckle up 💖 this is autofs, and in the good old System Manager's Manual it's known as Service control for the automounter. that's the whole vibe. it's the thing that bosses around your automounter. slay.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

so depending on which init system your lil machine is running, you call it one of two ways. pick your fighter:

if a SysV init script system is being used:

/etc/init.d/autofs start|stop|restart|reload|status

or if the systemd init system is being used:

systemctl start|stop|restart|reload|status autofs.service

that's it. that's the whole command. <rainbow>iconic honestly</rainbow> 🌈

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so what does autofs actually do? it controls the operation of the automount(8) daemon(s) running on the Linux system. yes, daemon(s), plural, it's giving harem energy 👑

usually autofs is invoked at system boot time with the start parameter, and at shutdown time with the stop parameter. like, it wakes up when your computer wakes up and goes night-night when your computer goes night-night. the way that it's just always there for you 🫶

but also! service control actions can be manually invoked by the system administrator to shut down, restart, reload or obtain service status. so if you're the sysadmin you can just. do that. whenever. main character energy fr fr 💅

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✨ OPERATION ✨

🎀 how it finds your mounts

autofs will consult a configuration file /etc/auto.master (see auto.master(5)) by default to find mount points on the system. that's the default, no cap.

for each of those mount points, automount(8) will mount and start a thread, with the appropriate parameters, to manage the mount point. one lil thread per mount point, doing its lil job 🧚

💜 reload, explained (this part matters)

/etc/init.d/autofs reload or systemctl autofs.service reload will check the current auto.master map against the current automount managed mounts.

then it does three things:

• it will terminate those daemons or threads (depending on autofs version) whose entries have been removed,
• re-read the automount maps for entries that have changed,
• and start new daemons or threads for entries that have been added.

like a lil glow-up for your mounts. out with the old, in with the new ✨

😭 when changes actually take effect

this is the part where it gets lowkey annoying, so listen up:

• If an indirect map is modified then the change will become effective immediately. 🎉
• If an indirect map uses the browse option, the master map contains direct mount maps, or the auto.master map is modified — then the autofs service control reload action must be rerun to activate the changes. no shortcut bestie, you gotta rerun it.

however. if a map entry has offsets and is currently in use, the offset mounts cannot be updated due to potential mount dependencies. in that case the map entry offsets will not be updated until after the map entry has expired. so it's not broken, it's just waiting. be patient 💀

👑 checking the status

/etc/init.d/autofs status or systemctl status autofs.service will display the status of automount(8), running or not. simple as that.

when using the systemd init system, the status output includes somewhat more information related to the service status. systemd just loves to yap, honestly 🙈

also, systemctl(1) has more functions than the actions mentioned here — see systemctl(1) for more information. it's giving overachiever.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read these too, they're all part of the family:

• automount(8)
• autofs(5)
• autofs.conf(5)
• auto.master(5)
• autofs_ldap_auth.conf(5)
• systemctl(1)

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💖 AUTHOR 💖

This manual page was written by Christoph Lameter <chris@waterf.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system.

Edited by H. Peter Anvin <hpa@transmeta.com> and Ian Kent <raven@themaw.net>.

thank you kings for your service 🫡💐

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this one is from the System Manager's Manual, dated 9 Sep 1997 (yes it's old, it's vintage, it's thriving), filed under AUTOFS(8). periodt. 💅✨🎀