Abstract

This paper describes the automounter -- an automatic filesystem mounting service distributed with Sun Microsystems version of the Unixâ operating system (SunOs). The automounter detects access to remote filesystems and mounts them on demand. This action is transparent to users and programs. Automounted filesystems are automatically unmounted after a period of inactivity. The map files that control the automounter can specify multiple locations for filesystems replicated across a network and can describe mount hierarchies. Automount maps can be administered on a single machine through local files or across a Yellow Pages domain. 1. Introduction The automounter was originally developed as a component of Sun's Network Software Environment (NSEä) [1]. An important requirement was for seamless access to files whether they be on a local disk or on a remote server. A file anywhere on the network could be accessed with a Unix pathname, leaving the automounter the task of locating the file and...

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