sshfs under autofs from Debian 10.9 to macOS 11.0 fails, but sshfs without autofs from and to same works fine

I am attempting to set up autofs to spawn an sshfs. The autofs is on a Debian 10.9 system. The remote sshd I want it to connect to is on a mac running Big Sur. When I try to ls the intended (auto)mountpoint, I just get: No such file or directory I can ssh in fine, without a password, both as myself and as root. I want the sshfs to use root. I changed /etc/ssh/sshd_config to allow root login with a password. Other than that, the mac's sshd is untweaked. Also, this works fine on the Debian system: $ sshfs root@daniels-mac-mini:/System/Volumes/Data /mnt $ ls /mnt ...making it even more weird that sshfs isn't working but only when attempted under autofs. If I look in the mac's logs, I see a lot of: comp.apple.xpc.launchd (com.openssh.sshd...): Service exited with abnormal code: 255 And if I use launchctl to shut down the sshd on the mac, and then run: /usr/sbin/sshd -d ...in a terminal, I get a lot of output, including (retyped, I don't have cut and paste happy yet) : attempt 6 failures 5 [preauth] Failed password for root from 192.168.1.96 port 33336 ssh2 maximum authentication attempts exceeded for root form 192.168.1.96 port 33336 ssh2 [preauth] Disconnecting authenticating user root 192.168.1.96 port 33336: Too many authentication failures [preauth] ...which is strange, because it should be using public key authentication, not a password. I know passwordless is working fine in other circumstances between these two hosts. I've tried a number of things in /etc/auto.mymount on the Debian system, from complex but well-explored-in-Linux-land to as simple as: daniels-mac-mini -fstype=fuse,allow_other :sshfs\#root@daniels-mac-mini\:/System/Volumes/Data Any suggestions folks? I'm about out of ideas. Thanks!