Problem with +mapname in auto maps

[Ron Stanonik]

We've got sun386s and sun4s running sunos 4.0.1.

Although the man page for automount says you can include a yp map in an
automount map, apparently you can't include a yp map with the same name as
the map file.

I was trying to use a map file /auto.vol to allow local control of
automount, but have it default to the yp map.  /auto.vol on alpha looked
like

help	alpha:/usr/lib/help
+auto.vol

That is, alpha (sun386) should get the help files locally, but everything
else from the yp map auto.vol.  It does mount help, but nothing from the
yp gets mounted (as though having seen the name auto.vol once, as a file,
it doesn't try again, from the map.)  A bare + also doesn't work.
(Inconsistent with how other files are yp mapped: passwd, group, ...) If
the yp map has a different name, then it does mount from the map as well
as the local file.  (By the way, when testing be sure that automount was
started in the same directory as the map file; eg, the current directory
for automout started at boot time is probably /, so use /auto.mount.
Also, I've found that kill -9 automount is just trouble, but kill -TERM
makes it clean up after itself, so it can restarted by hand.)

That is, suns (386s in this case), with lots of disk, probably want to get
things locally, but the others want to mount from a server.  I could also
imagine a use for this with third party software not site licensed, which
expects to reside in /vol; ie, /auto.vol would mount it locally.

Ron Stanonik
stanonik at nprdc.navy.mil

[[ I don't know about the same directory stuff.  Seems to me that I was
starting the automounter from some directory other than /etc and was
giving it "/etc/automount.conf" for a file name.  What problems have you
experienced starting it in a different directory?  --wnl ]]