Conclusion

We have managed to mount resources using NFS for simple static mounts. Then, by coupling them with Autofs, we have altered them to become automated mounts. With both these configurations, we have been able to add support to allow for server failure by configuring them with client failover.

Finally, we have shown that incorporating Autofs into a naming service can make the system easy to administer, although there are a few things to think about and plan along the way.

More features are available within Autofs, but the ones shown here should be enough to provide an overview of how it works and to configure an initial system.