I recently learned about the program map type in the Linux automounter.
You can read about it here, but there is little information about it, and I was unable to find any web pages about it, so I am writing this post since it might help others.
The NFS automounter on Linux can take a static map, which we all know, including wildcard. The static map
is in the format of key options export_location.
Well, the automounter also supports a program map type. The program map type specifics a program to run,
and the program returns the export location for any key in that mount location:
/mnt/nfs program:/usr/local/sbin/mapper.py
It's really quite simple: The program takes the key as argument 1, and returns the export_location that
would be found in a static map. The program does not return anything else -- it returns only the location of
the NFS export. If the program returns anything else, autofs reports an error in the logs. The documentation
does say that it can return "everything but the key," but this was not my experience.
In my example, if the user executes cd /mnt/nfs/blah, the automounter executes /usr/local/sbin/mapper.py blah,
and the script might return something like filer.example.com:/volume1/maps/abc/123, which would then be mounted
at /mnt/nfs/blah as expected.
This can be useful if you want a fully dynamic automount map that is maintained by a group other than the sysadmins of a server. In my case, a development organization maintains a list of exports in a file that the script retrieves with HTTP. The script then parses that list of exports in the program, and any given key returns the correct location for the automounter to mount. The developers can now update their own autofs maps without involving the admins.
I am a system engineer in the Raleigh, NC area. My main interests are Unix, VMware, and networking. More about me, and how I got started.