Solaris Naming Administration Guide

Advanced FNS and File-Based Naming Issues

This section provides specific information on the relationship between files-based naming and FNS.

FNS Files

FNS uses new files which are stored in /var/fn directories on each machine. (While a /var/fn directory is normally stored on each machine, you can mount and export a central /var/fn directory via NFS.)

The new FNS files are:

fns_host.ctx which stores host attributes and subcontext data. When this is first created, it derives its information from the /etc/hosts file.
fns_user.ctx which stores user attributes and subcontext data. When this is first created, it derives its information from the /etc/passwd file.
fns_org.ctx which stores organization attributes and subcontext data.
fns_host.attr which stores host attributes for attribute based searches.
fns_user.attr which stores user attributes for attribute based searches.
fns_org.attr which stores organization attributes for attribute based searches.
Users' sub-context and attribute information is stored in separate /var/fn files that are owned by each user. This allows users to modify their own data with FNS commands. These user-specific files are named fns_user_username.ctx where username is the login ID of the individual user.

Service and file context information for hosts, users, and the organization are stored in the respective fns_host.ctx, fns_user.ctx, and fns_org.ctx files. Printer context information is stored in the same files as other service context information.

Sites are subcontexts of the organization and site context information is stored in the fns_org.ctx file.

Note -

These FNS files should not be edited directly. You modify or work with these files by running the appropriate FNS commands such as fncreate, fndestroy, fnbind, fnunbind, fnrename, fnattr, fnlookup, and fnlist. When you run these commands as root, they affect the context that they are applied to such as hosts, site, and organization unit. When you run these commands as a user, they affect only your own user sub-contexts.

Migrating From Files-Based Naming to NIS or NIS+

The fncopy command handles the FNS-related aspects of changing your underlying enterprise-level naming service from files to NIS or NIS+. This command copies and converts files-based FNS contexts to NIS or NIS+ based contexts.

The command syntax is:

fncopy [-i oldsvc -o newsvc] [-f filename] oldctx newctx

For example, to copy the contexts listed in the file /etc/host_list to the doc.com domain of an NIS+ naming service, you would enter:

fncopy -i files -o nisplus -f /etc/host_list //doc.com/host

Printer Backward Compatibility

In Solaris release 2.5, FNS support for printer naming for files was provided for the organization context with a file named printers.conf.byname. In the current Solaris release, organization context printer support is maintained in the fns_org.ctx map. That is, the fncreate_printer command now modifies the fns_org.ctx map and not the printers.conf.byname map.