Why can't I write in/mount over /home?

SunOS 5.x is delivered with the "automounter" enabled. The
automounter is designed for NFS sites, to simplify maintenance of
the list of filesystems that need mounting. However it is a burden
for standalone sites.

The automounter takes over /home and in effect becomes the NFS
server for it, so it no longer behaves like a normal directory.
This is normally a Good Thing as it simplifies administration if
everybody's home directory is /home/<username>, regardless of their
physical location.

If you want to continue to use the automounter, edit /etc/auto_master
and comment out the line starting with "/home". Then run the
"automount" command which will cause automountd to reload the maps.

To kill it off for standalone or small networks running Solaris 2.3
or later, you can stop automountd by running "/etc/init.d/autofs
stop". Prevent it from starting at boot time by renaming the file
/etc/rc2.d/SXXautofs to /etc/rc2.d/sXXautofs, where XX are two
digits depending on the OS release. (If you change your mind, just
rename it back)

Note that such a configuration change is not supported and that it can
be undone by a patch installation or upgrade; editing /etc/auto_master
is the supported option.

In Solaris 2.2, the procedure is different. You need to comment
out the three lines in /etc/init.d/nfs.client that start "if" (from
the if to the fi!!), and reboot (Solaris 2.2)

To learn about it, read the O'Reilly book "Managing NFS and
NIS", or ftp the white paper 'The Art of Automounting". from
sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/sun-info/white-papers.

ASGAUR