What is "automountd" and why does it try to connect to "fakehome.dat"?

Question

Hi everybody,
Ever since i upgraded from 10.7.x to Lion (10.8.2), every time i start my laptop Little Snitch reports "automountd wants to connect to fakehome.dat on UDP port 111 (sunrpc)."
The IP address points to "Highwinds Network Group, Inc." (http://whois.domaintools.com/69.16.143.107)
I've seen some people blame this on SuperDuper, but i don't have SuperSuper installed.
Does anybody know what this is? I've been denying the connection on a day-to-day basis. Should i be allowing the connection?
Thanks,
Paul

Answer 1

What is happening is that OSX is trying to attach to all of the network storage paths you have available, probably to do something like populate the side bar in a save dialog. OSX hits a dead end so it asks the DHCP server for help. The DHCP server is probably at your ISP or perhaps something like OpenDNS.org if you set it up. Typically, they report back some ad-link crap for things they can't find. However, it looks like your ISP intentionally set up something that can't be used. That's a good thing, because OSX will immediately stop looking at that point.
If you are not connecting to file storage, the usual suspects are network files sharing turned on (if you don't need it, turn it off), Time Machine, AirDrop, iCloud, and Dropbox if you have LAN syncing turned on. Even with all of those things turned off, OSX will still try to contact the DHCP server (even though it shouldn't, yes, lil snitch has uncovered a flaw in OSX, harmless though it may be).
Generally, this is not a "problem" per se, but it can cause a delay in showing dialogs etc while DHCP is being queried, but far less than say an external drive that has fallen asleep. If you are not using network file storage outside of your local network, and not using named paths within it, it is probably okay to block traffic to the ISP's DHCP server for automountd (not other processes). You can try it, and if there seems to be a problem, Lil Snitch makes it easy to remove that rule. Should you add some network storage, or an app that does, in the future, then you will likely need to delete this rule.
As for the value of Lil Snitch, "3rd party" are not a dirty words. It is a valuable tool that can spot nepherious or excessive network traffic. My personal experience with it, it has found apps "phoning home", tracking images embedded in emails, runaway processes (hello Dropbox, I'm looking at you), and apps embedded in web pages. But like any tool, it's important to know how to use it. People of alerted to a process they aren't familiar with and are curious, so they do a web search. That's good and fine. Unfortunately, there are too many flippant answers like the one above that provide an solution to the symptom (uninstall the tool) rather than providing an answer to the question asked (what is this thing?).
If you don't understand something that doesn't make it pointless.
Like a lot of old-school forums, Apple Support Communities puts a premium on a contributor's volume, not their quality. It's best to seek answers somewhere else, like the StackExchanges, where contributions are valued qualitatively not quantitatively and the contributors themselves are held accountable for their content and conduct.