NAME

       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.

       /etc/init.d/autofs  status  or  systemctl autofs.service status 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)