macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 upgrade preserves auto_master customizations
The upgrade process to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 preserves your custom automount master mapping (auto_master) file. This is a welcome improvement over Catalina, and eliminates the need to manually restore your auto_master customizations after the upgrade.
The information in this post may be outdated. This newer post covers a functional automount configuration in newer versions of macOS.
This post is a follow-up to my previous coverage of macOS Catalina 10.15.x auto_master resets after upgrade.
I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro from Catalina 10.15.7 to Big Sur 11.0.1 and was delighted to find that my automounts still work post-upgrade! As a frequent user of network shares on my home network, I have to commend the folks at Apple for *finally* getting this one right.
Following a successful upgrade, check the automount master mapping file (/etc/auto_master) to verify that your previously-working changes (auto_master customizations) were preserved.
sudo nano /etc/auto_master
As a refresher, the default contents of the master mapping file look something like this:
#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master # Use directory service
#/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers -fstab
/- -static
In my case, I have one line appended which references my other auto_nas file. (You may have more than one, depending on your setup.)
/- auto_nas
For manual verification, run the automount command to flush the cache and reload /etc/auto_master:
sudo automount -vc
Look for confirmation that each share mounted successfully:
automount: /System/Volumes/Data/Nas/media mounted
automount: /System/Volumes/Data/Nas/storage mounted
automount: /System/Volumes/Data/Nas/archives mounted
Assuming you upgraded from Catalina, you have likely already ensured that your mountpoints are updated to match Catalina’s new directory structure. Otherwise, automount will complain about the mount point not existing.
Happy Big Sur automounting!
I actually do not have this working even on Monterey. What am I doing wrong?
@Laszlo, hard to say… do you get any output from “sudo automount -vc” showing the mount points you expect?