General Information

Automatically mounting network shares with autofs. This is the client configuration and assumes a working server setup with NFS or CIFS shares already.

Checklist

• Distro(s): Enterprise Linux 6/7
• Other: Network server with shared directory (NFS or CIFS)

Pre-reqs:

• Assuming that all client/server regular nfs/cifs mounting works before continuing. See below for configuration.
  • NFS Shares
  • CIFS Shares

Install autofs

yum install autofs

The master map file contains entries that point to other config files for specific mount instructions.

• EL6: /etc/auto.master
• EL7: /etc/auto.master.d/<name>.autofs
  • In EL7, the “/etc/auto.master” file is part of the RPM; any updates to the autofs package could overwrite changes you make, so it is recommended to create your own master map file under /etc/auto.master.d/. The name does not matter, as long as it ends in “.autofs”

Master Map File Contents

• First column = name of the mount point on the local client system
• Second column = config file that controls its mounting
• Third column (optional) = default mount options for all mounts defined in config file

Example

# File: /etc/auto.master OR /etc/auto.master.d/<name>.autofs
 
# Direct mounts: look in auto.direct for mappings
/-     /etc/auto.direct
 
# Indirect mounts: look in auto.home for mappings of subdirectories of /home/
/home  /etc/auto.home --timeout=600

• Direct Maps ⇒ One or more full path mounts to one or more remote servers. This is similar to regular NFS mounts that you would see in /etc/fstab.
  • Above example: /- /etc/auto.direct
• Indirect Maps ⇒ Directories on the remote server that can all be mounted under the same local mount point. (IE: All sub directories of the listed local mount “/home”)
  • Above example: /home /etc/auto.home –timeout=600

Note: All direct map entries must be defined as “/-” in the /etc/auto.master or /etc/auto.master.d/<name>.autofs file.

# File: /etc/auto.direct
# Reminder of master map contents for reference:
#   /-     /etc/auto.direct
 
# Direct mappings: local mountpoint from remote mountpoint
/network-shares/nfs-share    -rw    192.168.1.151:/data/nfs
/network-shares/nfs-share2   -rw    192.168.1.151:/data/nfs2
/network-shares/cifs  -fstype=cifs,rw,credentials=/root/.ssh/.cifs-share  //192.168.1.151/cifs-share

• First column ⇒ local mount point
• Second column ⇒ mount options
• Third column ⇒ remote shared directory

Note: This example works best when implemented using LDAP authentication to ensure that user id's are matched up between NFS server and clients.

Naming local and remote directories

# File: /etc/auto.home
# Reminder of master map contents for reference:
#   /home  /etc/auto.home --timeout=600
 
# Indirect mappings: sub directories of /home/
yoda    192.168.1.151:/home/yoda
luke    192.168.1.151:/home/luke
vader   192.168.1.200:/home/vader

Naming local only (Ampersand Wildcard)

yoda    192.168.1.151:/home/& 

• The “&” is replaced by the key in the first column (yoda)

All wild cards (Asterisk and Ampersand Wildcards)

*    192.168.1.151:/home/&

• “*” is assigned the directory that is accessed. If someone tried to access “/home/yoda”, the “*” value is “yoda”.
• The “&” in the remote server line is replaced by the key in the first column (*). So if someone accesses local “/home/yoda”, the remote system (192.168.1.151) gets an access attempt to “/home/yoda”

Start and Enable Auto Mounter on Boot

• EL7

  systemctl start autofs
  systemctl enable autofs

• EL6

  service autofs start
  chkconfig autofs on

Reload Auto Mount Config (to enable changes made after service startup)

• EL7

  systemctl reload autofs

• EL6

  service autofs reload