/etc/auto.master points the autofs mountpoint to /var/autofs/misc. /etc/auto.misc specifies what remotes get automounted to what subdirectories (flat space, no submounts) of /var/autofs/misc. Typical line, to mount my Win2K cygwin root as /var/autofs/misc/SELF_cygwin is:

\r\n\r\nSELF_cygwin -fstype=smbfs,noauto,credentials=/root/samba_creds,workgroup=DOMAIN1, gid=smbuser,fmask=660,dmask=770 ://SELF/cygwin\r\n\r\n

(That should be one line).

To make things slightly handier, I've created a directory under /net listing servers and shares explicitly, so /net/SELF/cygwin might point to \\SELF\\cygwin. This provides more context for traversing directories.

I've also set the automount timeout in /etc/defaults/autofs to four seconds, to avoid the resource starvation issue mentioned above. Could probably be set lower.

The whole getup seems to be working relatively well. Docs indicate some ways for doing "submounts" which seems the handy way to organize hierarchical structures such as server/share combinations. Not to mention not having to keep sets of links and autofs hints up to date. I can script same, but that would get tedious fast.