Stopping and restarting automount

It is generally necessary to stop and restart automount when:

• introducing new maps.

• introducing new command line options (you want automount to run differently).

• changing the content of the master map or telling automount to use a different master map.

• changing a mount point in a direct map.

If you need to stop and restart automount without interrupting NFS service:

1. Unmount the automounted filesystems using the umount(ADM) command.

2. Determine the process ID of automount by entering:
   
   ps -ef | grep automount | egrep -v grep

3. Stop automount by entering:
   
   kill -15 pid

   Here, pid stands for the process ID you obtained from the previous ps command.

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   CAUTION: Do not use kill -9 to stop automount. Doing so will not clear the /etc/mnttab file and may prevent filesystems from being mounted. See also ``Unexpected automount termination''.

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4. Complete any desired changes to your automount configuration.

5. Restart automount from the command line. If automount is usually started by default from the NFS startup script, ensure that the command line syntax matches the automount entry in /etc/nfs.

See also:

• ``Configuring automount''

• automount(NADM)