Autofs recognizes some characters as having a special meaning. For example, some characters are used for substitutions and some characters are used to protect other characters from the autofs map parser.
If you have a map with many subdirectories specified, as in the following example, 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 the key appears. If you use the ampersand, the previous map changes to the following text:
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 such as the following example:
/usr/man willow,cedar,poplar:/usr/man
You can also simplify the entry further as follows:
/usr/man willow,cedar,poplar:&
Notice that the ampersand substitution uses the whole key string. Therefore, if the key in a direct map starts with a / (as it should), the slash is included in the substitution. Consequently, for example, you could not include the following entry:
/progs &1,&2,&3:/export/src/progs
Autofs would interpret the example as follows:
/progs /progs1,/progs2,/progs3:/export/src/progs
You can use the universal substitute character, the asterisk (*), to match any key. For example, 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.