.TH AUTOFS 8 "9 Sep 1997"
.SH NAME
/etc/init.d/autofs \- Control Script for automounter
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B /etc/init.d/autofs
.I start|stop|restart|reload|status
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.B autofs
controls the operation of the
.BR automount (8)
daemons running on the Linux system. Usually
.B autofs
is invoked at system boot time with the
.I start
parameter and at shutdown time with the
.I stop
parameter. The
.B autofs
script can also be manually invoked by the system administrator to shut
down, restart or reload the automounters.
.P
.SH "OPERATION"
.B autofs
will consult a configuration file
.I /etc/auto.master
(see
.BR auto.master (5))
by default to find mount points on the system. For each of those mount points
.BR automount (8)
will mount and start a thread, with the appropriate parameters, to
manage the mount point.
.P
.B /etc/init.d/autofs reload
will check the current auto.master map against running daemons. It will kill
those daemons whose entries have changed and then start daemons for new or  
changed entries.
.P
If a map is modified then the change will become effective immediately. If
the
.I auto.master
map is modified then the
.B autofs
script must be rerun to activate the changes.
.P
.B /etc/init.d/autofs status
will display the status of,
.BR automount (8),
running or not.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR automount (8),
.BR autofs (5),
.BR auto.master (5).
.BR autofs_ldap_auth.conf (5)
.SH 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>.