Getting Help in AFS
| Appendix B. OpenAFS Command Syntax and Online Help |

## 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 (" ").

Commonly Used fs and pts Commands |  | Glossary