autofs (automount) is not mounting

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

Situation

Automounter is not mounting file systems even though the syntax in the map files has been configured correctly. For example:

auto.master syntax is acceptable:

/mountpoint /etc/mount.map --timeout 600

In turn, /etc/mount.map contains:

dir1 -fstype=nfs,rw,nosuid,soft server:/export

Automountd (autofs) has been started successfully. However, when a user enters the /mountpoint directory, there is no "dir1" present, and nothing has been mounted.

Resolution

For normal map files (such as mount.map in the example above), insure that the file does not have execute permissions set. When automount see an executable map file, it assumes it is a script and attempts to execute it. Then, it would use the output of that script to determine the map. However, a normal map file has the map defined already, and needs to be read, not executed.

Conversely, if the map file is indeed a script designed to build maps on the fly, it must be executable or automount will not use it correctly.

Disclaimer

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