Why does autofs throw the following message "validate_location: expected colon delimeter not found in location" in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Issue

• Why does autofs throw the following message "validate_location: expected colon delimeter not found in location" in Red Hat Enterprise Linux ?

• The automounter on RHEL 6.2/5.8 behaves differently than in earlier versions in relation to map file syntax. It appears that it now requires a colon as a delimiter. Not providing one will result in the remote filesystem not being mounted. The following message is observed:

Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: attempting to mount entry /myserver/apps
Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: file map not found
Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: lookup_mount: lookup(yp): looking up apps
Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: lookup_mount: lookup(yp): apps -> -fstype=autofs auto.apps
Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: parse_mount: parse(sun): expanded entry: -fstype=autofs auto.apps
Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: parse_mount: parse(sun): gathered options: fstype=autofs
Dec 15 15:13:14 XXX automount[16461]: validate_location: expected colon delimeter not found in location auto.apps