.TH AUTOFS 8 "9 Sep 1997"

.SH NAME

autofs \- Service control for the automounter

.SH SYNOPSIS

If a SysV init script system is being used:

.br

.B @@initdir@@/autofs

.I start|stop|restart|reload|status

.P

or if the systemd init system is being used:

.br

.B systemctl

.I start|stop|restart|reload|status

.B autofs.service

.SH "DESCRIPTION"

.B autofs

controls the operation of the

.BR automount (8)

daemon(s) running on the Linux system. Usually

.B autofs

is invoked at system boot time with the

.I start

parameter and at shutdown time with the

.I stop

parameter. Service control actions can also be manually invoked by

the system administrator to shut down, restart, reload or obtain

service status.

.P

.SH "OPERATION"

.B autofs

will consult a configuration file

.I @@autofsmapdir@@/auto.master

(see

.BR auto.master (5))

by default to find mount points on the system. For each of those mount points

.BR automount (8)

will mount and start a thread, with the appropriate parameters, to

manage the mount point.

.P

.B @@initdir@@/autofs reload

or

.B systemctl autofs.service reload

will check the current auto.master map against the current automount managed

mounts. It will terminate those daemons or threads (depending on

.B 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.

.P

If an indirect map is modified then the change will become effective immediately.

If an indirect map uses the

.B browse

option, the master map contains direct mount maps or the

.I auto.master

map is modified then the

.B autofs

service control reload action must be rerun to activate the changes.

.P

.B @@initdir@@/autofs status

or

.B systemctl autofs.service status

will display the status of,

.BR automount (8),

running or not. When using the systemd init system the status output includes

somewhat more information related to the service status.

.P

.B systemctl(1)

has more functions than the actions mentioned here, see

.B systemctl(1)

for more information.

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.BR automount (8),

.BR autofs (5),

.BR autofs.conf (5),

.BR auto.master (5),

.BR autofs_ldap_auth.conf (5),

.BR systemctl(1).

.SH 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>.