This ancient perl4 script (download here) automates the maintenance of sun automount(8) configurations.

Current status: I wrote that?
Last update: 1992
Status as of last update: worked fine


NAME
       autoautomount - automatically configures the automounter

SYNOPSIS
       autoautomount  [ -autoupdate ] [ -silent ] [ -flush [ hostname... ] ] [
                        -----------     -------     ------   --------
       -favor ] [ -unfavor ]
       ------     --------

DESCRIPTION
       autoautomount will generate  and  maintain  automount(8)  configuration
       files.   It  will  also maintain the fstab.  autoautomount assumes that
       you want all of the exported filesystems of computer x mounted  at  /x.
                                                            -              --
       This  is  fundemental  to  autoautomount  so  if  it  does not fit your
       requirements, do not use autoautomount!  autoautomount is  designed  to
       be used in a network that includes both Sun and Apollo workstations.

       There are two primary ways to use autoautomount: the first is to use it
       to install automount; the second is to maintain your automount configu-
       ration.   Whenever autoautomount is run, it generates shell scripts for
       both installing and maintaining  your  automount  configuration  files.
       These scripts are named auto.install, and auto.update respectively.
                               ------------      -----------

       Although  it  is  not always required, it is usually a good idea to run
       auto.install in single-user mode because it  has  to  be  able  unmount
       ------------
       filesystems  with impunity.  To make sure that auto.install is examined
                                                      ------------
       before it is run, autoautomount does not turn on execute permission for
       auto.install.
       ------------

       Invoked without any options, autoautomount will just create a few files
       for you to look at.  There is no risk in running  autoautomount  in  an
       empty directory.

       The  basic  activity  of autoautomount is to run a showmount -e on each
       host listed in the /etc/hosts file and build  an  automount  mount  map
       using the information returned.

       Because  apollo  computers  do not work very well, autoautomount treats
       them specially.  It soft-mounts them instead of hard mounting them.  It
       also  will  make  links  so  that  you can access ones that are not NFS
       servers through ones that are.

OPTIONS
       In its normal mode of operation, autoautomount is somewhat verbose;  it
       reports  each host as it processes it.  This verbosity can be supressed
       with the -silent option.

       One common way to use autoautomount is to run it from  cron(8)  once  a
       week.   The  -autoupdate option will cause the auto.update script to be
       run automatically.  If combined with the -silent option, there will not
       be any output if everything works.

       Because  an important system might not be up during a particular run of
       autoautomount, the output from showmount(8) is cached in /etc/auto.mas-
       ter.   If you wish to flush the cached output, you can invoke autoauto-
       mount with the -flush option.  If you also specify some hosts, it  will
       only flush the information on the hosts specified.

       Normally, autoautomount makes links in the root level for each host and
       unique filesystem.  Links are only make for hosts and filesystems  that
       receive  consideration.  By default, everything receives consideration.
       The -unfavor option reverses the default.  The -favor  option  restores
       it.

FSTAB DIRECTIVES
       Directives  can  be placed as comments in your fstab(5) file to control
       the action of the autoautomount.  Each  directive  must  begin  at  the
       start of a line with the following magic cookie:

       # auto DIRECTIVE host/filesystem ...
              --------- --------------- ---

       The following directives are recognized:

       ignore    specifices that a host or filesystem should be ignored by the
                 autoautomounter.  It will not be removed from the  fstab  (if
                 present), and it will not be put into the automout configura-
                 tion files.

       remount   specifies that a host should have its fstab entries rewritten
                 so  that  it  mounts  everything.  autoautomout always mounts
                 other hosts at the root level.

       unfavor   specifies that a host or filesystem should not be  considered
                 when making top level links.

       favor     specifies that a host or filesystem should be considered when
                 making top level links.  By default, all hosts  and  filesys-
                 tems  are  considered  for  links, but if the favor option is
                 used, and neither the -favor or -unfavor command  line  argu-
                 ments  are  used,  then only those hosts and filesystems that
                 are explicitly favored get consideration.

       include   specifies another file  with  directives  for  autoautomount.
                 Unlink  /etc/fstab, the magic cookie is not required in addi-
                 tional files.

HOSTS DIRECTIVES
       As autoautomount processes the /etc/hosts file, it looks for  a  couple
       of  magic cookies in the comments.  If it finds the comment, no nfs, on
       the same line as a system, then it will skip that system (very  similar
       to the ignore directive in /etc/hosts).

       If it finds the string, apollo, in the comment field, then if it cannot
       get a showmount -e to report anything, it will make the assumption that
       the  corresponding system is running Domain OS, and add in a link to it
       through another apollo system.

ENVIRONMENT
       No enviroment variables are used.

FILES
       /etc/fstab
       /etc/hosts
       /etc/rc.local
       /etc/auto.master    automount master map.
       /etc/auto.hard      indirect map of hard mounts.
       /etc/auto.soft      indirect map of soft mounts (apollo).
       auto.install        generated installation script.
       auto.update         generated update script.
       auto.fstab          new /etc/fstab file.
       auto.master         new /etc/auto.master file.
       auto.hard           new /etc/auto.hard file.
       auto.soft           new /etc/auto.soft file.

SEE ALSO
       automount(8), mount(8), showmount(8), fstab(5), rc(8)


BUGS
       autoautomount is not very flexible.  It was built to support a particu-
       lar  environment  and  its  usefulness  to  anyone  else depends on how
       closely their environment matches ours.

       A host and a filesystem with the same name might confuse autoautomount.
       Ignoring  or  unfavoring one or the other should work around this prob-
       lem.

       When unmounting filesystems, autoautomount does not notice if they have
       filesystems  mounted  on  top  of  them.  This can cause the process to
       fail.  This will not be a problem if you do the unmounting by hand.

       It is assumed that mount -a is a harmless command.  This is usually  an
       acceptable assumption.

AUTHOR
       David Muir Sharnoff        Comdisco System
       ----- ---- --------    --------------    -------- ------



		January 29, 1992               AUTOAUTOMOUNT(8)