The input file supplies the names and values to be bound in the context of composite_name. Its format is a sequence of lines of the form:

name [ -options ] [ location ...]

For each such entry, a reference to the location(s) and the corresponding options is bound to the name composite_name/name. The name field may be a simple atomic name, a slash-separated hierarchical name, or '.' (period). If it is '.' then the reference is bound directly to composite_name. The name field must not begin with a slash.

The location field specifies the host or hosts that serve the files for composite_name/name. In the case of a simple NFS mount, location takes the form:

host:path

where host is the name of the host from which to mount the file system, and path is the path name of the directory to mount.

The options field is a comma-separated list of the mount options to use when mounting the location bound to composite_name/name. These options also apply to any subcontexts of composite_name/name that do not specify their own mount options. If options is given but location is not, the options apply to subcontexts only.

If neither options nor a location is given, then no reference is bound to composite_name/name. Any existing reference is unbound.

A single logical line may be continued across multiple input lines by escaping the newline with a '\' (backslash). Comments begin with a '#' that is either at the beginning of a line or is prefixed by whitespace, and end at the end of the line.

If no input_file is specified on the command line, then the options and location fields given on the command line are bound directly to composite_name. This is equivalent to providing a one-line input file with a '.' in the name field.

Multiple location fields may be specified for NFS file systems that are exported from multiple, functionally-equivalent locations. If several locations in the list share the same path name, they may be combined using a comma-separated list of host names:

host1,host2,...:path

The hosts may be weighted, with the weighting factor appended to the host name as a non-negative integer in parentheses: the lower the number, the more desirable the server. The default weighting factor is 0 (most desirable). In the example:

alpha,bravo,charlie(1),delta(2):/usr/man

hosts alpha and bravo are the most desirable; host delta is the least desirable.

See the USAGE section of automount(1M) for additional information on how the automounter interprets the location field.

Variable names, prefixed by '$', may be used with the options or location fields. For example, a location may be given as:

svr1:/export/$CPU

The automounter will substitute client-specific values for these variables when mounting the corresponding file systems. In the above example, $CPU is replaced by the output of uname -p; for example, "sparc". See the USAGE section of automount(1M) for more information on how the automounter treats variable substitution.

For additional compatibility with automount maps (see automount(1M)), the following input format is accepted:

name [options] [location ...] \ /offset1 [options1] location1 ... \ /offset2 [options2] location2 ... \ ...

where each offset field is a slash-separated hierarchy. This is interpreted as being equivalent to:

	name	[options] [location ...^]
	name/offset1	[options1] location1 ...
	name/offset2	[options2] location2 ...
	...

This format is for compatibility only; it provides no additional functionality. Its use is deprecated.

The following examples illustrate the use of the fncreate_fs command. The call:

example% cat input1 src -ro svr1:/export/src dist -ro svr2,svr3:/export/dist example% fncreate_fs -f input1 org/engineering/fs

creates a file system context for the engineering organization. It specifies that org/engineering/fs/src is a read-only NFS mount from server svr1, and that org/engineering/fs/dist is a read-only NFS mount from either svr2 or svr3.

Once this is done, there are several equivalent ways to create the engineering organization's src/cmd context. It could be done using the composite name org/engineering/fs:

example% cat input2 src/cmd svr1:/export/cmd example% fncreate_fs -f input2 org/engineering/fs

Equivalently, it could be done using the composite name org/engineering/fs/src:

example% cat input3 cmd svr1:/export/cmd example% fncreate_fs -f input3 org/engineering/fs/src

The same results could also be achieved by:

example% fncreate_fs org/engineering/fs/src/cmd svr1:/export/cmd

Note that cmd will also be mounted read-only, since it is a subcontext of src and does not have mount options of its own.

In the first example of this section, the -ro mount option was specified for each entry in the input file. It could instead have been specified only once:

example% cat input4 . -ro src svr1:/export/src dist svr2,svr3:/export/dist example% fncreate_fs -f input4 org/engineering/fs

The -ro option here applies to all bindings in the context org/engineering/fs and any of its subcontexts. In particular, it also applies to the cmd context from the above examples.

The following will change the NFS server for the src context:

example% fncreate_fs org/engineering/fs/src svr4:/export/src

Had the -r option been used, the cmd subcontext would have been destroyed as well:

example% fncreate_fs -r org/engineering/fs/src svr4:/export/src

Only the FNS context is destroyed. The /export/cmd directory on svr1 is not affected.

The file system contexts of users and hosts are not usually created by fncreate_fs (see the NOTES section below). The defaults set by fncreate, however, may be overridden. For example, the call:

example% fncreate_fs user/jane/fs svr1:/export/home/jane

sets Jane's file system to be an NFS mount from svr1.