4. Configuration

Installing the RPM packages will get you to this point easily enough, but here's the part you might not be sure about if you haven't done this before.

There are two files in /etc, one called auto.master and one called auto.misc. A sample auto.master looks like this:

/auto   /etc/auto.misc  --timeout=60

The first entry is not the mount point. It's where the set of mount points (found in the second entry) are going to be. The third option says that the mounted filesystems can try to unmount themselves 60 seconds after use. You will have to stop using the disk before unmounting it.

Auto.misc is a "map file". The map file can have any name; this one is named auto.misc because it originally controlled /misc. Multiple map files can be defined in auto.master. My auto.misc looks like this:

kernel          -ro,soft,intr           ftp.kernel.org:/pub/linux
cd              -fstype=iso9660,ro      :/dev/cdrom
zip             -fstype=auto            :/dev/hdd4
floppy          -fstype=vfat            :/dev/fd0

The first column (the "key") is the mount point. In this case it would be /auto/floppy or whatever. The middle set are the options; read the mount manpage for details on this. And the last column specifies where the fs comes from. The "kernel" entry is supposed to be an NFS mount. The : on all the other lines means its a local device.