1.5. autofs

Prior to this update, the autofs utility did not reset the map entry status on a reload request. As a result, newly added map entries that had previously recorded a mount failure failed to work. With this update, autofs resets the map entry status on a reload request and map entries are mounted as expected.

Prior to this update, reloading an existing map could consume an extensive amount of memory. This occurred because the automount daemon failed to free the memory which it preliminary allocated to the map before it had detected that the map already existed. With this update, the memory is freed and the memory leak no longer occurs on map reload.

The autofs daemon failed to mount hidden Windows shares when using the auto.smb program map. This occurred because the program map did not translate the $ sign in the share names correctly. With this update, the code that matches the share names has been added and the hidden shares are mounted as expected.

Prior to this update, the autofs utility could terminate with a segmentation fault when attempting certain mounts. This occurred due to a race condition between mount handling threads for mounts that had previously recorded a mount failure. This update adds a check that verifies that the automount cache map entry is valid and the error no longer occurs.

The autofs utility failed to mount folders from Windows Server with the ampersand (&) in their name. With this update, such folders are mounted successfully.

Prior to this update, the automount(8) man page referred to a non-existent man page. This was caused by a typographical error in the code. With this update, the man page reference has been corrected and the man page is displayed as expected.

Due to a deadlock, autofs could stop responding when attempting to mount map entries that were nested within maps. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and, where possible, nested map entries mount correctly.

Prior to this update, automount could terminate unexpectedly with a pthreads error. This occurred because attempts to acquire the master map lock occasionally failed as the lock was held by another thread. With this update, the underlying code has been adapted to wait for a short time before failing.

Previously, the automount daemon did not support receiving paged results from an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) server. This update adds the code that handles paged results and such results are processed correctly.

Prior to this update, if a key entry of an automount map began with an asterisk (*) sign, the daemon failed with a segmentation fault because the sign was not matched correctly. With this update, such asterisk signs are handled correctly.

Prior to this update, a race condition could have caused the automount daemon to terminate unexpectedly. This happened because the parse_sun module pre-opened and cached the Network File System (NFS) mount module so that the mount module could be accessed by other modules quickly. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and the race condition on longer occurs.

Prior to this update, the automount daemon stopped responding on startup when started with an already-mounted CIFS (Common Internet File System) share due to a deadlock. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and the deadlock no longer occurs.

Prior to this update, automount failed to look up mounts from multiple included map sources. This occurred due to a problem with negative caching. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and automount performs the included map lookups correctly.

When mounting new mounts, the automount daemon could have stopped responding. This occurred due to an execution order race during expire thread creation. This update refactors the code handling expire thread creation and the problem no longer occurs.

The autofs utility failed to mount Lustre metadata target (MDT) failover mounts because it could not understand the mount point syntax. With this update, the mount point syntax is processed correctly and the failover is mounted as expected.

Prior to this update, autofs failed occasionally to reload an updated map correctly when the map type was specified explicitly. This occurred because the map stale flag was cleared after the map entry lookup instead of being cleared at the update completion. With this update, the underlying code has been changed to clear the stale flag at the completion of the update and the maps are reread correctly.

Previously, autofs could have terminated unexpectedly with a segmentation fault if it was heavily loaded with mount requests to service. This occurred due to an invalid pointer. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and autofs no longer crashes in such circumstances.

Previously, when expanding the & character on map key substitution, autofs handled the white space characters in the key incorrectly. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and the expanding of such keys is handled correctly.

Previously, autofs could have terminated unexpectedly with a segmentation fault when reloading maps. This occurred when the master map referenced null maps. This error has been fixed, and autofs no longer crashes when reloading such maps.

The automount daemon now supports LDAP simple authenticated binds.

This update adds the --dumpmaps option to the automount command, which allows you to dump the maps from their source as seen by the automount daemon.

Previously, if multiple mount locations were present, the selection of a mount depended on the weight value defined by the user and on the server response time. With this update, the user can use the option --use-weight-only to make the selection priority depend only on the weight value.

The autofs utility did not allow the locality name attribute (l) for an LDAP DN (Distinguish Name) in master map entries. This update adds the code to allow the use of DNs with the locality attribute in their name.

With this update, the autofs utility supports SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) external authentication with certificates using maps stored on an LDAP server.

This update adds simple Base64 encoding for LDAP and thus allows hashing of the password entries in the /etc/autofs_ldap_auth.conf configuration file.

The autofs utility now provides IP addresses for map entries that use host names with multiple network addresses in its debugging output.