RHCSA Practical Lab Series – Configuring AutoFS for NFS Mounts

CloudNetOps

28 Feb 2025 — 2 min read

🔍 Lab 8: Setting Up AutoFS for Network File System (NFS) Mounts

📌 Objective

In this lab, you will:

✔ Install and configure AutoFS to automatically mount an NFS share
✔ Ensure that remoteuser1’s home directory is automatically mounted at /rhome/remoteuser1
✔ Enable persistent mounting with read-write (rw) permissions
✔ Verify and troubleshoot AutoFS behavior

📌 Step 1: Install Required Packages

🔹 Ensure NFS and AutoFS utilities are installed:

[root@node1 ~]# yum -y install nfs-utils
[root@node1 ~]# yum -y install autofs

📌 Explanation:

nfs-utils → Provides support for NFS client operations
autofs → Enables automatic mounting of remote file systems

📌 Step 2: Configure AutoFS Master File

🔹 Edit the AutoFS master configuration file:

[root@node1 ~]# vim /etc/auto.master

🔹 Add the following line at the end of the file:

/rhome  /etc/auto.rhome

📌 Explanation:

/rhome → This is the base mount point for AutoFS.
/etc/auto.rhome → Specifies the map file that defines the NFS mounts.

📌 Step 3: Define NFS Mount Points in AutoFS

🔹 Edit the AutoFS map file for /rhome:

[root@node1 ~]# vim /etc/auto.rhome

🔹 Add the following entry:

remoteuser1 -rw materials.cloudnetops.tech:/rhome/remoteuser1

📌 Explanation:

remoteuser1 → This subdirectory will be mounted dynamically.
-rw → Grants read-write access to the mounted directory.
materials.cloudnetops.tech:/rhome/remoteuser1 → Specifies the NFS export location.

📌 Step 4: Start and Enable AutoFS

🔹 Enable and start the AutoFS service:

[root@node1 ~]# systemctl enable --now autofs

📌 Tip: The --now flag starts the service immediately and enables it at boot time.

🔹 Verify AutoFS is running:

[root@node1 ~]# systemctl status autofs

📌 Step 5: Verify Auto-Mounted Directories

🔹 List the /rhome directory (should be empty until accessed):

[root@node1 ~]# ls /rhome/

📌 Expected Output:

(no output – directory appears empty)

🔹 Trigger the AutoFS mount by accessing the directory:

[root@node1 ~]# ls /rhome/remoteuser1

📌 Expected Output (if successful):

lost+found  documents  configs

✅ If files appear, AutoFS successfully mounted the NFS share!

📌 Step 6: Verify User Access

🔹 Switch to remoteuser1 and check the working directory:

[root@node1 ~]# su - remoteuser1
[remoteuser1@node1 ~]$ pwd

📌 Expected Output:

/rhome/remoteuser1

🔹 Test file creation inside the mounted directory:

[remoteuser1@node1 ~]$ touch testfile.txt

✅ If the file is created without errors, the mount has read-write permissions.

📌 Step 7: Verify the Mounted File System

🔹 Check active mounts for /rhome:

[root@node1 ~]# mount | grep rhome

🔹 Expected Output:

materials.cloudnetops.tech:/rhome/remoteuser1 on /rhome/remoteuser1 type nfs4 (rw,relatime,vers=4.2,soft,timeo=600,retrans=2)

✅ If this appears, AutoFS successfully mounted the NFS share.

📌 Troubleshooting:

If ls /rhome/remoteuser1 does not show files, check for firewall or NFS server issues:

[root@node1 ~]# showmount -e materials.cloudnetops.tech

If the directory does not mount automatically, restart AutoFS:

[root@node1 ~]# systemctl restart autofs

✅ Final Summary

✔ Installed AutoFS and NFS utilities
✔ Configured AutoFS master and map files
✔ Enabled automatic mounting for /rhome/remoteuser1
✔ Verified AutoFS is correctly mounting the NFS share