Getting Help in AFS

AFS online help consists of basic syntax messages. The AFS distribution also includes help in HTML format which your system administrator can make available to you.

Displaying Command Syntax and Aliases

To display a brief description of a command, its syntax statement, and alias if any, use the help operation code. For example, to display the online help entry for the fs listacl command, enter the following command:

   % fs help listacl
   fs listacl: list access control list
   aliases: la
   Usage: fs listacl  [-path <dir/file path>+]  [-id] [-if] [-help]

To display the syntax statement only, use the -help flag, which is available on most AFS commands. For example, to display the syntax statement for the fs setacl command, enter the following command:

   % fs setacl -help
   Usage: fs setacl -dir <directory>+ -acl <access list entries>+ [-clear] [-negative]
   [-id] [-if] [-help]

Displaying Operation Code Descriptions

To display a short description of all of a command suite's operation codes, issue the help operation code without any other arguments. For example, the fs help command displays a short description of every operation code in the fs command suite.

To display a list of the commands in a command suite that concern a certain type of object, provide a relevant keyword argument to the apropos operation code. For example, if you want to set an ACL but cannot remember which fs command to use, issue the following command:

   % fs apropos set
   setacl: set access control list
   setcachesize: set cache size
   setcell: set cell status
   setclientaddrs: set client network interface addresses
   setquota: set volume quota
   setserverprefs: set file server ranks
   setvol: set volume status
   sysname: get/set sysname (i.e. @sys) value

The following message indicates that there are no commands whose names or descriptions include the keyword string you have provided:

   Sorry, no commands found

Note

If the keyword you provide has spaces in it, enclose it in double quotes (" ").