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autofs in Catalina

Could please someone point me to documentation on the proper way to use autofs under Macos Catalina and the proper way to mount a share from a Synology NAS using SMB?

iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 11, 2019 3:05 PM

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Posted on Jan 22, 2020 2:19 PM

Apple used to have an official autofs document on the internet. They have taken it down, but you might still be able to find some illegal copies. Search for "Autofs: Automatically Mounting Network File Shares in Mac OS X"


But you still have some Catalina hoops to jump through. It is best to avoid direct access to the data volume. If you have to do that, it usually means you’ve done something wrong. The line above that one is probably the one that is wrong. To create directories at the root of the APFS filesystem on Catalina, look up the “synthetic” system via “man synthetic.conf”.


The Mac hasn’t been very good at networking for several years now. I think you should be able to avoid the catastrophic failures that you describe, but you should always expect the Finder and apps to be really slow with network volumes and periodically just stop working.

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Jan 22, 2020 2:19 PM in response to Diogo Vasconcelos1

Apple used to have an official autofs document on the internet. They have taken it down, but you might still be able to find some illegal copies. Search for "Autofs: Automatically Mounting Network File Shares in Mac OS X"


But you still have some Catalina hoops to jump through. It is best to avoid direct access to the data volume. If you have to do that, it usually means you’ve done something wrong. The line above that one is probably the one that is wrong. To create directories at the root of the APFS filesystem on Catalina, look up the “synthetic” system via “man synthetic.conf”.


The Mac hasn’t been very good at networking for several years now. I think you should be able to avoid the catastrophic failures that you describe, but you should always expect the Finder and apps to be really slow with network volumes and periodically just stop working.

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Dec 16, 2019 6:39 AM in response to Diogo Vasconcelos1

Hello Diogo Vasconcelos1,


Thanks for using Apple Support Communities! If I'm understanding correctly, you're having issues with file sharing in macOS Catalina, and I'd like to do what I can to help out.


Catalina is now up to macOS 15.1.2. I'd suggest making sure your Mac is updated. How to update the software on your Mac


As always, back up your Mac before updating, if you haven't already. How to back up your Mac


The macOS User Guide for Catalina has a great section on file sharing:

Start with: Set up file sharing on Mac

Move on to: Connect your Mac to shared computers and servers & Set the protocol for file sharing on Mac

Some troubleshooting: If your Mac can’t connect to another computer


If everything looks as it should, but you still can't connect to another computer, I'd recommend contacting Apple Support.


Take care!


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Feb 1, 2020 2:12 PM in response to dexigner

I think you nailed it, dexigner! I cannot believe I didn't think to try moving the mount points outside of /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ earlier... I've been struggling with this since Catalina was released. Things are finally back to normal with my automounts and they are as reliable as they were pre-Catalina.


In case it helps anyone else, a few other users confirmed this helped them, too:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250752057?page=1

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Dec 16, 2019 1:52 PM in response to MoonJ.

Hi, thank for your reply. I already have 10.15.2.

I'm not trying to set up file sharing on Mac, I'm trying to automount an SMB share from a Synology NAS using autofs (/etc/auto_master + /etc/auto_nas)

I have no problems mounting from Finder using Go>Connect to Server and entering smb://<nas_name>/<share_name>

But this approach means the shares won't reconnect after a Synology NAS reboot or whatever reason so what I'm trying to do is:

1- Adding '/- auto_nas -nobrowse,nosuid' to /etc/auto_master

2-Adding '/System/Volumes/Data/Users/<user_name>/<mount_point> -fstype=smbfs,soft,noowners,rw ://<username>:<password>@<nas_name or ip>/share_name'

This works and the share mounts. The problem is it also brings MACOS to its knees after sometime eventually becoming unresponsive and crashing.

After automount -vc or after restart if you issue 'df' at the terminal you get multiple entries for auto_nas which seems strange. If I mount the share manually using the Finder solution I have no multiple entries when issuing 'df'.

I can't find documentation on the proper way and syntax of using automount on Catalina so I'm not sure I'm doing correctly. I use it all the time on Linux machines without any problem.

Thank you

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autofs in Catalina

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