The Network Mounting Daemon
When deploying the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) on Ubuntu to manage enterprise authentication (like LDAP or Active Directory), the software installs several sub-modules. One of these is the sssd-autofs.service. This daemon is designed to integrate SSSD with the Linux autofs system. Its purpose is to automatically pull network file system (NFS or SMB) mount maps from the central LDAP directory, allowing users’ home directories to be dynamically mounted over the network the moment they log in.
While this is a brilliant feature for a sprawling university computer lab where users can sit at any desk and instantly access their files, it is completely redundant on a standalone server or a machine where all storage is local. If your server is not mounting user home directories from a central NAS using LDAP maps, the sssd-autofs daemon is just sitting in the background consuming a tiny fraction of memory. It should be disabled.
How to Disable the SSSD AutoFS Service
You can stop this network mapping responder using systemctl.
Warning: Do not disable this on a workstation that relies on autofs/LDAP to mount remote network drives upon login.
- Open your Ubuntu Terminal or connect via SSH.
- Stop the active service socket (if it is currently running):
sudo systemctl stop sssd-autofs.socket- Stop the daemon itself:
sudo systemctl stop sssd-autofs.service- Disable both so they do not attempt to start on the next reboot:
sudo systemctl disable sssd-autofs.socket
sudo systemctl disable sssd-autofs.serviceYour SSSD deployment will remain fully functional for user authentication and authorization, but it will no longer attempt to pass mount map data to the operating system.