Configuring User Accounts

There are no requirements for NFS users to access AFS as unauthenticated users. To take advantage of more AFS functionality, however, they must meet the indicated requirements.

To configure a user account for issuing AFS commands

  1. Create entries for the user in the Protection and Authentication Databases, or create a complete AFS account. See the instructions for account creation in Creating and Deleting User Accounts with the uss Command Suite or Administering User Accounts.

  2. Modify the user's PATH environment variable to include the pathname of AFS binaries, such as /afs/cellname/sysname/usr/afsws/bin. If the user works on NFS client machines of different system types, considering replacing the specific sysname value with the @sys variable. The PATH variable is commonly defined in a login or shell initialization file (such as the .login or .cshrc file).

  3. (Optional) Set the AFSSERVER and AFSCONF environment variables if appropriate. This is required if the NFS client machines on which the user works do not have the /.AFSSERVER and /.AFSCONF files in their root directories, or if you want user-specific values to override those settings.

    Either define the variables in the user's login or shell initialization file, or create the files .AFSSERVER and .AFSCONF files in the user's home directory.

    For the AFSSERVER variable, specify the fully-qualified hostname of the translator machine that is to serve as the remote executor. For the AFSCONF variable, specify the name of the directory where the CellServDB and ThisCell files reside. If you use a central update source for these files (by convention, /afs/cellname/common/etc), name it here.

  4. If the pathname you defined in Step 2 includes the @sys variable, instruct users to check that their system name is defined correctly before they issue AFS commands. They issue the following command:

       % fs sysname