Automounting

Here's a good long explanation of "auto-mounting", the process whereby certain volumes are automatically mounted when you try to access them, and unmounts them when they seem to be unused. You shouldn't put network drives in your fstab(5), as your boot times will be much slower and it might even hang if there are network problems. By using amd, you can mount them when you actually try to access the drive.

One thing I'd be wary of is that this is a file that is 3 years old at this point. I haven't used amd all that much, and I haven't read this file over carefully, but you need to make sure the information isn't obsolete. I've added links to the handbook and man pages for the appropriate tools, so you might want to start there and only use this file if you have additional questions.

Fun With Automounting on FreeBSD

Here are the appropriate FreeBSD Handbook (the first place to go when you have questions) and man page entries:

Network File System (NFS) - 24.3.4 Automatic Mounts with amd


amd(8)


amq


amd.conf(5)