How To Install autofs on Debian 10

Learn how to install autofs on Debian 10 with this tutorial. autofs is kernel-based automounter for Linux

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install autofs on Debian 10.

What is autofs

autofs is:

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. A recent version of the kernel autofs4 module (builtin or separate) is required.

This is the autofs daemon.

There are three methods to install autofs on Debian 10. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install autofs Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install autofs using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install autofs

Install autofs Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install autofs using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install autofs

Install autofs Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install autofs using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install autofs

How To Uninstall autofs on Debian 10

To uninstall only the autofs package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove autofs

Uninstall autofs And Its Dependencies

To uninstall autofs and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 10, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove autofs

Remove autofs Configurations and Data

To remove autofs configuration and data from Debian 10 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge autofs

Remove autofs configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove autofs configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge autofs

Dependencies

autofs have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install autofs package on Debian 10 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.