NAME

       autofs - Service control for the automounter

SYNOPSIS

       If a SysV init script system is being used:
       /etc/init.d/autofs start|stop|restart|reload|status

       or if the systemd init system is being used:
       systemctl start|stop|restart|reload|status autofs.service

DESCRIPTION

       autofs  controls  the operation of the automount(8) daemon(s) running on the Linux system. Usually autofs
       is invoked at system boot time with the start parameter and at shutdown time  with  the  stop  parameter.
       Service  control  actions can also be manually invoked by the system administrator to shut down, restart,
       reload or obtain service status.

OPERATION

       autofs will consult a configuration file /etc/auto.master (see auto.master(5)) by default to  find  mount
       points on the system. For each of those mount points automount(8) will mount and start a thread, with the
       appropriate parameters, to manage the mount point.

       /etc/init.d/autofs  reload  or  systemctl  autofs.service  reload  will check the current auto.master map
       against the current automount managed mounts. It will terminate those daemons or  threads  (depending  on
       autofs version) whose entries have been removed, re-read the automount maps for entries that have changed
       and start new daemons or threads for entries that have been added.

       If  an  indirect  map  is modified then the change will become effective immediately.  If an indirect map
       uses the browse option, the master map contains direct mount maps or the auto.master map is modified then
       the autofs service control reload action must be rerun to activate the changes.

       However, if a map entry has offsets and is currently in use the offset mounts cannot be  updated  due  to
       potential  mount dependencies. In this case the map entry offsets will not be updated until after the map
       entry has expired.

       /etc/init.d/autofs status or systemctl status autofs.service will display the  status  of,  automount(8),
       running  or  not. When using the systemd init system the status output includes somewhat more information
       related to the service status.

       systemctl(1) has more functions than the actions mentioned here, see systemctl(1) for more information.

SEE ALSO

       automount(8), autofs(5), autofs.conf(5), auto.master(5), autofs_ldap_auth.conf(5), systemctl(1).

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Christoph Lameter <chris@waterf.org>, for the  Debian  GNU/Linux  system.
       Edited by H. Peter Anvin <hpa@transmeta.com> and Ian Kent <raven@themaw.net>.

                                                   9 Sep 1997                                          AUTOFS(8)