autofs

autofs is a file system that automatically mounts file systems as needed and unmounts them when they are not being used. The new automount daemon is now fully multithreaded. This enables concurrent servicing of multiple mount requests. The new functionality makes the service more reliable.

The autofs service now supports browsability of indirect autofs maps. All mountable entries under an autofs mount point can be visible without the overhead of mounting them first. By default the /home and /net autofs mount points will have browsing disabled, but all other indirect mount points will be browsable. The ability to browse can be administered at the host level with the automount command and at a name-space level through the autofs maps.

In addition, better on-demand mounting of hierarchically related file systems is included. Previous releases automounted an entire set of file systems if they were hierarchically related, even if only one file system was referenced. Now, the file system that is referenced is dynamically mounted without the other file systems in the hierarchy.

For more information, see NFS Administration Guide.