Autofs controls the operation of the automount daemons. The automount daemons automatically mount filesystems when they are used and unmount them after a period of inactivity. This is done based on a set of pre-configured maps. . The kernel automounter implements an almost complete SunOS style automounter under Linux. Automounter version 4 (autofs4) has to be enabled when compiling the kernel. Debian packaged kernels have it enabled.
