FS_NEWALIAS(1)

📦
version 1.8.16.1 · 10 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 FS_NEWALIAS(1) — like, the whole manual page, bestie

okay so welcome to fs_newalias, a lil command from the AFS Command Reference family. it lives in section 1, it's adorable, and it does exactly one job. let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

fs_newalias — creates a new alias for a cell 💖

(yeah that's it. that's the whole name. short king behavior.)

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

fs newalias [-alias] <alias name>
    [-name] <cell name> [-help]

look at her. two ways to feed her the same info, and she'll take either. queen of flexibility 👑

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So. fs newalias is the command you reach for when the AFS Cache Manager is vibing in Dynamic Root mode (that's -dynroot, iykyk). What it does: it makes a symbolic link in /afs that goes from an alias to the full name of the cell. That's the main character move. ✨

But wait, there's more — it also creates another symlink, this one from your alias prepended with . to the full name of the cell prepended with .. And why do we care about the dot? Because that's the convention for getting to the read/write version of the root.cell volume of that cell. periodt. 💅

This command exists to supplement the aliases that get created via the CellAlias configuration file when afsd starts. so it's not replacing that, it's the backup dancer, not the lead. 🫶

Back in the olden days (ngl, kind of iconic lore), these aliases would be made by the local AFS administrator just... creating symbolic links in the root.afs volume. cute, right? 😭 BUT — those symlinks do not show up when Dynamic Root is enabled, because with Dynamic Root the Cache Manager does not mount or even look at the root.afs volume. not even a glance. 💀 This whole alias capability is the replacement that lets those short names get created under client control. slay.

⚠️ CAUTIONS ⚠️

Bestie. Listen. I need you to hear me on this one.

Aliases created with fs newalias are only temporary. They get lost when the AFS Cache Manager is restarted or the client machine is rebooted. gone. poof. 💀

If you want the alias to be permanent, you have to put it into the CellAlias file. That's the only way. no shortcuts, no cap.

And also — and this is the part that lowkey hurts — there is no way to remove an alias once created without restarting the AFS Cache Manager. You can't undo it. You can't delete it. You just have to restart the whole thing. 🙈 so maybe don't go wild in here.

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • -alias <alias name> — the short name you want to map onto the real cell name. this is your nickname for the cell. the pet name. 🥰
  • -name <cell name> — the actual, real, full cell name. the government name. 🏛️
  • -help — prints the online help for this command. and here's the thing: all other valid options are ignored when you use it. she doesn't multitask. 💅

🌈 OUTPUT 🌈

This command has no output.

literally nothing. silence. she said 🤐. not a single line printed, and honestly? that's a flex.

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

There are two ways to call fs newalias — pick your fighter:

% fs newalias openafs openafs.org
% fs newalias -alias openafs -name openafs.org

both of these do the exact same thing, bestie. both create an alias openafs for the cell openafs.org. 💖

And because one alias means two links (remember the dot thing??), two links get created in /afs:

/afs/openafs   ->  /afs/openafs.org
/afs/.openafs  ->  /afs/.openafs.org

the second one is the read/write one. she's the one with the secrets. 🤫

🔐 PRIVILEGE REQUIRED 🔐

Whichever person is issuing this command must be logged in as the local superuser root. Yes, really. root. the big one. no, your regular little account is not enough. 👑

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

(the whole squad. go say hi. 🫶)

Copyright 2007 Jason Edgecombe <jason@rampaginggeek.com>

This documentation is covered by the BSD License as written in the doc/LICENSE file. This man page was written by Jason Edgecombe for OpenAFS.

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 it's giving OpenAFS, dated 2026-07-27, written by Jason Edgecombe for OpenAFS, and you read the whole thing which means you're officially the main character of this man page. go make some aliases (but remember they're temporary!! 😭). mwah 🎀✨🦋

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