autofs timeout settings for unreliable servers – how to avoid hangup? Mount the NFS-share on the clients using the mount-options “bg,intr,hard”. Most important in your case is “bg” for background – which tells the system not to block when the server is not available. “intr” for interrruptable – so you can kill hanging mounts on the client with the kill command. “hard” is the opposite of “soft”. The difference is that “hard” …