Default Autofs Behavior With Name Services

At boot time, autofs is invoked by the service svc:/system/filesystem/autofs and autofs checks for the master auto_master map.

Autofs uses the name service ordering specified in the config/automount property of the svc:/system/name-service/switch service. If the config/automount property is not defined, then the config/default property is used. If NIS is selected and autofs cannot find a map that autofs can use, but does find a map name that contains one or more underscores, the underscores are changed to dots to allow traditional NIS file names to work. Then autofs checks the map again. For a name service switch setting of automount: files nis ldap, maps would be found as shown in the following figure.

How Autofs Uses the Name Service

Graphic shows the order in which different information sources are checked to look for autofs information.

The screen activity for this session would resemble the following example.

$ grep /home /etc/auto_master
/home           auto_home

$ ypmatch dollyp auto_home
Can't match key dollyp in map auto_home.  Reason: no such map in
server's domain.

$ ypmatch dollyp auto.home
diskus:/export/home/diskus1/&

If files is selected as the name service, all maps are assumed to be local files in the /etc directory. Autofs interprets a map name that begins with a slash (/) as local regardless of which name service autofs uses.