The autofs daemon mounts and unmounts filesystems, such as user
home directories shared via NFS, on demand. In addition, autofs can be used to handle
removable media, and the default configuration provides the cdrom device as /misc/cd.
However, this method of providing access to removable media is not common, so autofs
can almost always be disabled if NFS is not in use. Even if NFS is required, it may be
possible to configure filesystem mounts statically by editing /etc/fstab
rather than relying on the automounter.
The autofs service can be disabled with the following command:
$ sudo systemctl mask --now autofs.service
Disabling the automounter permits the administrator to
statically control filesystem mounting through /etc/fstab.
Additionally, automatically mounting filesystems permits easy introduction of
unknown devices, thereby facilitating malicious activity.
autofs allows automatic mounting of devices, typically including CD/DVDs and USB
drives.
The autofs package can be removed with the following command:
$ sudo dnf remove autofs
With automounting enabled anyone with physical access could attach a USB drive or disc and have its contents available in the filesystem even if they lacked permissions to mount it themselves.