autofs bug fix and enhancement update

An updated autofs package that fixes several bugs and adds an enhancement
is now available.

The autofs utility controls the operation of the automount daemon, which
automatically mounts and unmounts file systems after a period of
inactivity. File systems can include network file systems, CD-ROMs,
diskettes, and other media.

This updated package fixes the following bugs:

* the automount daemon did not log enough information to troubleshoot
replicated server-selection problems.

* for multi-map configurations, autofs did not detect updates to NIS maps.
In order to detect updates, the autofs service had to be reloaded. In this
updated package, updates to NIS maps are detected.

* when a NIS or LDAP backend became unavailable, the automount daemon
would shut down. Errors similar to "lookup(yp): read_map for [/directory]
failed: Can't communicate with portmapper" were logged to
"/var/log/messages". In this updated package, the automount dameon no
longer shuts down when a NIS or LDAP backend becomes unavailable.

* when using CIFS mounts, the automounter passed a leading ":" character
with the command sent to mount.cifs, causing CIFS mounts to fail.

* in certain situations, automounter interpreted comments in map files,
instead of ignoring them. This may have caused mounts to fail.

* previously, the automount daemon issued RPC pings to hosts for both
replicated and single mount points. This increased latency. In this updated
package, the automount daemon no longer issues RPC pings for single mount
entries.

* negative caching only occurred for failed mounts, and not failed
lookups. This caused delays, resulting in commands such as "date" taking
more than two seconds to run. Errors such as the following may have
occurred:

lookup(program): lookup for [mount-name] failed
failed to mount [/mount/point]

* map entries that started with a colon escape were misinterpreted by the
NFS mount module, resulting in failed local mounts.

* autofs failed to start if an "automount" entry was not configured in
"/etc/nsswitch.conf".

* if options for the autofs-ldap-auto-master utility were stored in the
"LDAPAUTOMASTER" variable, configured in "/etc/sysconfig/autofs", the
automounter failed to find the master map in LDAP.

* the nsswitch binary incorrectly freed memory returned from the YP client
library, resulting in a crash.

* autofs failed to mount NFSv4 mount points when the client was also the
NFSv4 server. Such mounts require the NFS service to be running on the
local machine. Using the "port=[NFS-port]" option, or adding the
"nosymlink" option to the master map entry, prevents autofs from attempting
a "bind" mount.

As well, the logging level can now be changed dynamically while the autofs
daemon is running.

Users of autofs are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
resolves these issues and adds this enhancement.

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

240972 - autofs does not log enough data to troubleshoot replicated server selection
240973 - RFE: Allow debugging to be enabled on the fly
249909 - Need to strip : for mount.cifs support.
305261 - autofs configuration file with comments not at the beginning of line are interpreted, not ignored
429340 - autofs fails if nsswitch.conf doesn't have automount entry
434991 - glibc reports invalid free for nsswitch binary
435032 - autofs fails to mount nfs4 when client and server are same machine
450844 - automount segfault on SIGHUP after negative lookups