Comment 8 for bug 1566508

I finally had a chance to test this issue in Ubuntu 16.04. In a setup described as in the bug description above, autofs still won't start correctly, and this is a result of the whole string of problems. Most of them appear to be separate bugs, but I will list them here for completeness:

1. ifup returns before interface is up.
2. ifup@.service finishes before interface is up. This is for two reasons: because the service calls ifup, and because the service has wrong type (simple instead of oneshot). As a result, network-online.target is reached at a wrong time.
3. sssd.service does not wait for network-online.target.
4. autofs reverted in Xenial to a SysV-style script and does not have a systemd-style service file. Thus it is difficult to request that it is started after sssd. However, fixing #2 causes systemd to run SysV scripts much later, providing a relief for problems #4 and #5.
5. The issue being subject of this bug report is very likely still present, though I was unable to reproduce it exactly. Unfixed issue #2 caused auto fs to fail with a different error message ("setautomntent: lookup(sss): setautomntent: No such file or directory"), while fixed issue #2 hid the bug. The workaround involving waiting for sssd to start listening on /var/lib/sss/pipes/autofs can still be used for extra safety. I will test this further.

I will work more on these problems and submit bug reports for them if they haven't been reported yet.