The rest of this chapter describes more advanced autofs features and topics.
Autofs recognizes some characters as having a special meaning. Some are used for substitutions, some to protect other characters from the autofs map parser.
If you have a map with many subdirectories specified, as in the following, consider using string substitutions.
john willow:/home/john mary willow:/home/mary joe willow:/home/joe able pine:/export/able baker peach:/export/baker |
You can use the ampersand character (&) to substitute the key wherever it appears. If you use the ampersand, the previous map changes to:
john willow:/home/& mary willow:/home/& joe willow:/home/& able pine:/export/& baker peach:/export/& |
You could also use key substitutions in a direct map, in situations like this:
/usr/man willow,cedar,poplar:/usr/man |
which you can also write as:
/usr/man willow,cedar,poplar:& |
Notice that the ampersand substitution uses the whole key string, so if the key in a direct map starts with a / (as it should), the slash is carried over, and you could not do, for example, the following:
/progs &1,&2,&3:/export/src/progs |
because autofs would interpret it as:
/progs /progs1,/progs2,/progs3:/export/src/progs |
You can use the universal substitute character, the asterisk (*), to match any key. You could mount the /export file system from all hosts through this map entry.
* &:/export |
Each ampersand is substituted by the value of any given key. Autofs interprets the asterisk as an end-of-file character.
If you have a map entry that contains special characters, you might have to mount directories that have names which confuse the autofs map parser. The autofs parser is sensitive to names containing colons, commas, spaces, and so on. These names should be enclosed in double quotations, as in the following:
/vms -ro vmsserver: - - - "rc0:dk1 - " /mac -ro gator:/ - "Mr Disk - " |