Defining Cell Name and Membership for Server Processes
| Chapter 2. Installing the First AFS Machine |

## Defining Cell Name and Membership for Server Processes

Now assign your cell's name. The chapter in the OpenAFS Administration Guide about cell configuration and administration issues discusses the important considerations, explains why changing the name is difficult, and outlines the restrictions on name format. Two of the most important restrictions are that the name cannot include uppercase letters or more than 64 characters.

Use the bos setcellname command to assign the cell name. It creates two files:

- /usr/afs/etc/ThisCell, which defines this machine's cell membership

- /usr/afs/etc/CellServDB, which lists the cell's database server machines; the machine named on the command line is placed on the list automatically

### Note

In the following and every instruction in this guide, for the `machine name` argument substitute the fully-qualified hostname (such as fs1.example.com) of the machine you are installing. For the `cell name` argument substitute your cell's complete name (such as example.com).

1. If necessary, add the directory containing the bos command to your path.

          # export PATH=$PATH:/usr/afs/bin

2. Issue the bos setcellname command to set the cell name.

          # bos setcellname <machine name> <cell name> -localauth

3. Issue the bos listhosts command to verify that the machine you are installing is now registered as the cell's first database server machine.

          # bos listhosts <machine name> -localauth
          Cell name is cell_name
              Host 1 is machine_name

Starting the BOS Server |  | Starting the Database Server Processes