autofs does not mount /net/host

[Massimo Dal Zotto]

Binary package hint: autofs5

Following the example in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Autofs I'm trying to automount the root of a NFS server but it doesn't work:

$ ls -l /net/server
ls: cannot access /net/server: No such file or directory

$ ls -l /net/server/
ls: cannot access /net/server: No such file or directory

However the automount succeds if I append a "." or a subdir after the server path:

$ ls -l /net/server/.
total 124
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-04-20 22:25 bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-10-30 10:50 boot
...

$ ls -l /net/server/bin
total 6732
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2010-10-11 14:21 ash -> dash
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 801808 2010-08-10 21:58 bash
...

and after the server root has been automounted it works also with the server path only:

$ ls -l /net/server
total 124
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-04-20 22:25 bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-10-30 10:50 boot
...

With previous versions of autofs (autofs5_5.0.5-0ubuntu2 of ubuntu-10.10) I was able to automount the path "/net/server". After a fresh install of ubuntu-11.04-beta2-alternate-i386 this is no more possible.

------------------------------------
System information:

Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Apr 22 09:47:30 2011
Dependencies:
  coreutils 8.5-1ubuntu6
  debconf 1.5.36ubuntu4
  debconf-i18n 1.5.36ubuntu4
  dpkg 1.16.0~ubuntu7
  gcc-4.5-base 4.5.2-8ubuntu4
  libacl1 2.2.49-4ubuntu2
  libattr1 1:2.4.44-2ubuntu3
  libbz2-1.0 1.0.5-6ubuntu1
  libc-bin 2.13-0ubuntu13
  libc6 2.13-0ubuntu13
  libgcc1 1:4.5.2-8ubuntu4
  liblocale-gettext-perl 1.05-6
  liblzma2 5.0.0-2
  libselinux1 2.0.96-1ubuntu2
  libtext-charwidth-perl 0.04-6
  libtext-iconv-perl 1.7-2
  libtext-wrapi18n-perl 0.06-7
  libxml2 2.7.8.dfsg-2
  multiarch-support 2.13-0ubuntu13
  perl-base 5.10.1-17ubuntu4
  tzdata 2011e-1
  ucf 3.0025+nmu1ubuntu1
  xz-utils 5.0.0-2
  zlib1g 1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3ubuntu3
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta i386 (20110413)
Package: autofs5 5.0.5-0ubuntu6
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProblemType: Bug
ProcEnviron:
  SHELL=/bin/bash
  PATH=(custom, user)
  LC_COLLATE=C
  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  LANGUAGE=en_US:en
  LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic-pae 2.6.38.2
SourcePackage: autofs5
Tags: natty running-unity
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic-pae i686
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu Natty (development branch)
Release: 11.04

$ apt-cache policy autofs5
autofs5:
  Installed: 5.0.5-0ubuntu6
  Candidate: 5.0.5-0ubuntu6
  Version table:
 *** 5.0.5-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

Please attach your /etc/auto.master and Im assuming your /etc/auto.net.

thanks
chuck

[Massimo Dal Zotto (dz)]

The file /etc/auto.master contains only this line:

/net /etc/auto.net

The file /etc/auto.net is in the attachment and its output is the following:

$ /etc/auto.net server
-fstype=nfs,hard,intr,nodev,nosuid \
        / server:/

An strace on the autofs process shows that in case of /net/server (without /.) the autofs is not even invoked.

[Jonathan Sambrook (jonathan-hmmn)]

Identical issue here, including the "/net/${host}/." trick

[Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia)]

Have the same problem. Was very confusing until I eventually found this bug report; it seemed like automount wasn't working at all. Suspect it is a kernel issue.

[Jens Maus (jens.maus)]

Here I am having the same problem with our server since we upgraded them to 11.04 (natty):

-- cut here --
langner@mars:~$ ll /net/cns2/
ls: cannot access /net/cns2/: No such file or directory
langner@mars:~$ ll /net/cns2/.
ls: /net/cns2/./user: No such file or directory
ls: /net/cns2/./astro: No such file or directory
ls: /net/cns2/./NTOF: No such file or directory
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:08 NTOF
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:08 archive
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:08 astro
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:08 projects
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:08 user
langner@mars:~$ ll /net/cns2/.
ls: cannot access /net/cns2/./user: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /net/cns2/./astro: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /net/cns2/./NTOF: No such file or directory
total 0
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? NTOF
dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 0 Dec 10 2009 archive
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? astro
dr-xr-xr-x 53 root root 0 Jul 28 12:28 projects
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? user

-- cut here --

In addition, we identified that when setting a very short autofs unmount timeout (via "--timout X" option) this timeout is never reached and the mount point which was automounted stays forever.

The interesting part to not is, that when downgrading to kernel 2.6.35-30-server from 10.10 (Maverick) the problem instantly vanishes as you can see here:

-- cut here --
langner@mars:~$ ll /net/cns2/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:12 NTOF
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:12 archive
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:12 astro
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:12 projects
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 30 15:12 user
-- cut here --

Thus, I also suspect a kernel problem! Please also note that even upgrading to kernel 2.6.38-11-server which is still under development didn't solve the problem.

In addition, please remove the incomplete status of this bug report as we should have supplied enough information here to get some more priority on the issue!

[Axel Müller (axel-mueller)]

Same issue here. Adding the "." triggers the mount. Please fix this. Let me know if more information is needed.

[Brian J. Murrell (brian-interlinx)]

Oh, here we go again. Yet another Ubuntu bug report that goes completely ignored. The requested information (six months ago) is even provided (same day as requested) and nothing is done with it like so many other bugs.

Is this yet another problem that is simply too difficult to solve and so goes ignored until it is solved somewhere else, in the meanwhile, 60 days goes by here and then the bug janitor goes closing it out as "expired"?

[dino99 (9d9)]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The Precise Pangolin has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release