ADC Home > Reference Library > Reference > Mac OS X > Mac OS X Man Pages

 

This document is a Mac OS X manual page. Manual pages are a command-line technology for providing documentation. You can view these manual pages locally using the man(1) command. These manual pages come from many different sources, and thus, have a variety of writing styles.

For more information about the manual page format, see the manual page for manpages(5).



AUTO_MASTER(5)              BSD File Formats Manual             AUTO_MASTER(5)

NAME
     auto_master -- automounter master map

DESCRIPTION
     The auto_master file contains a list of the directories that are to be automounted.  Associated with
     each directory is the name of a map that lists the locations of the filesystems to be automounted
     there.  The default map looks like this:

           #
           # Automounter master map
           #
           +auto_master            # Use directory service
           /net                    -hosts          -nobrowse,nosuid
           /home                   auto_home       -nobrowse
           /Network/Servers        -fstab
           /-                      -static

     A ``#'' is the comment character. All characters from it to the end of line are ignored.  A line begin-ning beginning
     ning with ``+'' and followed by a name, indicates the name of a file or map accessible from a Directory
     Service source such as NIS or LDAP; the master map entries in that file or map are included at this
     point in the master map.  A line that specifies a map to be mounted has the format:

           mountpoint map -options

     where mountpoint is the directory on which the map is to be mounted, map is the name of the map to be
     mounted, and options is an optional, comma-separated list of default mount options to be used by any
     entries in the map that do not have their own mount options.  The -nobrowse option is used on maps that
     have the potential to produce entries too numerous for browsing to be practical. This option as used in
     the master map is distinct from nobrowse used as a Mac OS X mount option, which affects the visibility
     of the mount to the Finder.

     A map name beginning with / is the pathname of a file containing the map, otherwise the name represents
     a map to be found as a file in /etc or to be read from Directory Services.

     If more than one entry in the master map has the same mountpoint then all but the first are ignored.
     For instance, in the following master map:

                   /shared         my_auto_shared
                   +auto_master

     The /shared entry overrides any /shared specification imported from the network auto_master.

AUTOMOUNTER MAPS
     Automounter maps associate directories with the locations of filesystems that are to be mounted when
     the directory is accessed.  Map entries have the general form:

           key location

     These map entries may be represented by lines in a file, NIS or LDAP tables indexed by the key, or from
     output of an executable map.  Most commonly, the location is simply the name of an NFS server and the
     path to an exported file system, e.g.

          local     mynfs:/export/local

     A location can also represent multiple mounts, where each is associated with a relative path, for exam-ple: example:
     ple:

           pkg     \
                   /data   mynfs:/export/pkg/data \
                   /bin    mynfs:/export/pkg/bin  \
                   /man    mynfs:/export/pkg/man

     Reference to this entry will provide access to any of three exported file systems from the server, each
     via its own subdirectory.  Each of these sub-mounts will be done only when referenced.  Note the use of
     a backslash to escape the newline so that the automounter will read these lines as a single map entry.

     The location can be preceded by a comma-separated list of mount options with a prepended ``-''.  For
     example:

             bin     -ro,nosuid  mynfs:/export/bin

Direct Map
     A direct map associates filesystem locations directly with directories.  The entry key is the full path
     name of a directory.  For example:

           /usr/local      eng4:/export/local
           /src            eng4:/export/src

     Since the direct map as a whole isn't associated with a single directory, it is specified in the master
     map with a dummy directory name of /-.

Indirect Map
     An indirect map is used where a large number of entries are to be associated with a single directory.
     Each map entry key is the simple name of a directory entry.  A good example of this is the auto_home
     map which determines the entries under the /home directory.  For example:

           bill    argon:/export/home/bill
           brent   depot:/export/home/brent
           guy     depot:/export/home/guy

Executable Map
     An executable map is an indirect map represented by a file that has its execute bit set.  Instead of
     reading entries from the file directly, the automounter executes the program or script passing the key
     as an argument and receiving the location string on stdout.  If the automounter needs to enumerate map
     keys for a directory listing, it invokes the map with no arguments and expects a newline-separated list
     of keys on stdout.  For example:

             #!/bin/sh
             if [ $# = 0 ]; then # List keys
                     ypcat -k auto_entries | awk '{print $1}'
                     exit
             fi
             # Return location
             ypmatch $1 auto_entries

     If an error occurs, the executable map must return a non-zero exit status and no output.

Special Maps
     The special maps have reserved names and are built into the automounter.

     -fstab        This map would normally be mounted on /Network/Servers.  The key is the host name of a
                   server; the contents of the map entry are generated from corresponding entries in
                   fstab(5) data (as provided by getfsent(3)) that have the net option and that specify
                   mounts from that server.  An entry of the form

                        server:/path mountpoint fstype options 0 0

                   will be mounted in server/path under the mount point of the -fstab map, using the speci-fied specified
                   fied fstype file system type and the specified options.  The mountpoint is ignored.

     -hosts        This map would normally be mounted on /net.  The key is the host name of an NFS server;
                   the contents of the map are generated from the list of file systems exported by that
                   server.  For example, a server that exports three NFS filesystems might have an equiva-lent equivalent
                   lent map entry of:

                         myserv  \
                                 /export/home    myserv:/export/home \
                                 /export/local   myserv:/export/local \
                                 /export/pkg     myserv:/export/pkg

                   To access the first mount, the path would be /net/myserv/export/home if the map was asso-ciated associated
                   ciated with /net.

     -null         This map has no entries.  It is used to disable entries that occur later in the
                   auto_master file.  For example:

                                 /shared         -null
                                 +auto_master

                   The -null entry disables any /shared entry in +auto_master.

     -static       This map is a direct map, so the mount point must be specified as /-.  The contents are
                   generated from all entries in fstab(5) data (as provided by getfsent(3)) that do not have
                   the net option.  An fstab(5) entry of the form

                           server:/path mountpoint fstype options rw 0 0

                   will generate a direct map entry of the form

                           mountpoint options server:/path

FILES
     /etc/auto_master  The master map file.

SEE ALSO
     automount(8), automountd(8), autofsd(8), autofs.conf(5)

Darwin                          April 20, 2007                          Darwin

Did this document help you?
Yes: Tell us what works for you.
It’s good, but: Report typos, inaccuracies, and so forth.
It wasn’t helpful: Tell us what would have helped.