/etc/auto.master: /net /etc/auto.net --timeout 60 /etc/auto.net: server/var/remotedir -rw,hard,intr server:/var/remotedir remotedir -rw,hard,intr server:/var/remotedir Issuing "cd /net/remotedir" automatically mounts the directory correctly, but issuing "cd /net/server/var/remotedir fails to mount the remote volume at all. The user sees: /net/server/var/remotedir/: No such file or directory. In /var/log/messages: yankee automount[13037]: attempting to mount entry /net/server yankee automount[31810]: lookup(file): lookup for server failed This fails with the RH6.1 stock kernel and autofs RPMs and with Rawhide kernel and autofs rebuilt on an otherwise stock RH6.1 system. A similar automount configuration on Solaris works just fine, so I'm pretty sure it's not on the server end (although the server is a Solaris 2.6 machine).
This is a missing feature in all versions of autofs 3.x, and is being fixed by its authors for 4.x and 5.x. See Jeremy Fitzharding's web page (http://www.goop.org/~jeremy/autofs/) for full details.