The “autofs” filesystem module is only one part of an autofs system. There also needs to be a user-space program which looks up names and mounts filesystems. This will often be the “automount” program, though other tools including “systemd” can make use of “autofs”. This document describes only the kernel module and the interactions required with any user-space program. Subsequent text refers to this as the “automount daemon” or simply “the daemon”.
“autofs” is a Linux kernel module which provides the “autofs” filesystem type. Several “autofs” filesystems can be mounted and they can each be managed separately, or all managed by the same daemon.