Configuring User Accounts
| Appendix A. Managing the NFS/AFS Translator |

## 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 access AFS as authenticated users, they must of course authenticate with AFS, which requires an entry in the Protection and Authentication Databases.

- To create and store files, they need the required ACL permissions. If you are providing a home directory for storage of personal files, it is conventional to create a dedicated volume and mount it at the user's home directory location in the AFS filespace.

- To issue AFS commands, they must meet several additional requirements:

  - They must be working on an NFS client machine of a supported system type and from which the AFS command binaries are accessible.

  - Their command shell must define values for the AFSSERVER and AFSCONF environment variables, as described in Setting the AFSSERVER and AFSCONF Environment Variables. It is often simplest to define the variables by creating /.AFSSERVER and /.AFSCONF file in the NFS client machine's root directory, but you can also either set the variables in each user's shell initialization file (.cshrc or equivalent), or create files called .AFSSERVER and .AFSCONF in each user's home directory.

  - They must have an entry in the AFS Protection and Authentication Databases, so that they can authenticate if the command requires AFS privilege. Other commands instead require assuming the local root identity on the translator machine; for further discussion, see The AFSSERVER Variable.

  - Their PATH environment variable must include the pathname to the appropriate AFS binaries. If a user works on NFS client machines of different system types, include the @sys variable in the pathname rather than an actual system type name.

### 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

Configuring NFS Client Machines |  | Authenticating on Unsupported NFS Client Machines