System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (FNS and NIS+)

Copying and Converting FNS Contexts

The fncopy command can be used to copy or convert an FNS context and attributes to a new FNS context.

By using the -i and -o options, you can copy FNS contexts based on one underlying enterprise-level name service to a context based on a different underlying name service. For example, if you have an FNS installation running on top of NIS, and you upgrade your NIS service to NIS+, you can use fncopy to create a new context using NIS+.

Note that:

If the new FNS context that you are copying an old context to already exists for the target name service, only new contexts and bindings are copied. The contexts are not over-written or changed.
fncopy does not follow links, but copies the FNS link bound to a name to the new context namespace.

Table 25–9 fncopy Command Options


Option	Description
`-i oldservice`	The old (input) underlying enterprise-level name service. For example, `-i nis` specifies that the old service is NIS. Allowed values are `files`, `nis`, `nisplus`.
`-o newservice`	The new (output) underlying enterprise-level name. For example, `o nisplus` specifies that the new service is NIS+. Allowed values are `files`, `nis`, `nisplus.`
`-f filename`	A text file listing FNS contexts to be copied. In the absence of the `-i` and `-o` options, contexts must be identifies using global names.
`oldcontext`	The name of the context being copied.
`newcontext`	The name of the context being created or copied to.

For example, to copy the doc.com printer contexts (and sub-contexts) and bindings to orgunit/east/doc.com:

# fncopy .../doc.com/service/printer .../doc.com/orgunit/east/service/printer

To copy the NIS FNS users' contexts specified in the file user_list to an NIS+ FNS users' context of the orgunit west/doc.com:

# fncopy -i nis -o nisplus -f /etc/user_list thisorgunit/user org/doc.com/user