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HLFSD(8)		    System Manager's Manual		      HLFSD(8)

NAME
       hlfsd - home-link file system daemon

SYNOPSIS
       hlfsd  [	 -fhnpvC ] [ -a	alt_dir	] [ -c cache-interval ]	[ -g group ] [
       -i reload-interval ] [ -l logfile ] [ -o	mount-options ]	[  -x  log-op-
       tions ] [ -D debug-options ] [ -P password-file ] [ linkname [ subdir ]
       ]

DESCRIPTION
       Hlfsd  is  a daemon which implements a filesystem containing a symbolic
       link to subdirectory within a user's home directory, depending  on  the
       user  which  accessed that link.	 It was	primarily designed to redirect
       incoming	mail to	users' home directories, so that it can	read from any-
       where.

       Hlfsd operates by mounting itself as an NFS server  for	the  directory
       containing linkname, which defaults to /hlfs/home.  Lookups within that
       directory  are  handled by hlfsd, which uses the	password map to	deter-
       mine how	to resolve the lookup.	The directory will be  created	if  it
       doesn't	already	 exist.	  The  symbolic	 link will be to the accessing
       user's home directory, with subdir appended to it.  If  not  specified,
       subdir defaults to .hlfsdir.  This directory will also be created if it
       does not	already	exist.

       A SIGTERM sent to hlfsd will cause it to	shutdown.  A SIGHUP will flush
       the  internal  caches, and reload the password map.  It will also close
       and reopen the log file,	to enable the original log file	to be  removed
       or rotated.  A SIGUSR1 will cause it to dump its	internal table of user
       IDs and home directories	to the file /usr/tmp/hlfsd.dump.XXXXXX.

OPTIONS
       -a alt_dir
	      Alternate	 directory.   The  name	 of the	directory to which the
	      symbolic link returned by	hlfsd will point, if it	cannot	access
	      the  home	 directory  of	the user.  This	defaults to /var/hlfs.
	      This directory will be created  if it doesn't exist.  It is  ex-
	      pected  that  either  users will read these files, or the	system
	      administrators will run a	script to resend this "lost  mail"  to
	      its owner.

       -c cache-interval
	      Caching  interval.  Hlfsd	will cache the validity	of home	direc-
	      tories for this interval,	in seconds.  Entries which  have  been
	      verified within the last cache-interval seconds will not be ver-
	      ified again, since the operation could be	expensive, and the en-
	      tries  are  most likely still valid.  After the interval has ex-
	      pired, hlfsd will	re-verify the validity of the user's home  di-
	      rectory,	and  reset  the	cache time-counter.  The default value
	      for cache-interval is 300	seconds	(5 minutes).

       -f     Force fast startup.  This	option tells hlfsd  to	skip  startup-
	      time  consistency	 checks	 such as existence of mount directory,
	      alternate	spool directory, symlink to be hidden under the	 mount
	      directory, their permissions and validity.

       -g group
	      Set  the special group HLFS_GID to group.	 Programs such as from
	      or comsat, which access the mailboxes of other  users)  must  be
	      setgid  HLFS_GID to work properly.  The default group is "hlfs".
	      If no group is provided, and there is no group "hlfs", this fea-
	      ture is disabled.

       -h     Help.  Print a brief help	message, and exit.

       -i reload-interval
	      Map-reloading interval.	Each  reload-interval  seconds,	 hlfsd
	      will  reload the password	map.  Hlfsd needs the password map for
	      the UIDs	and  home  directory  pathnames.   Hlfsd  schedules  a
	      SIGALRM  to  reload  the	password maps.	A SIGHUP sent to hlfsd
	      will force it to reload  the  maps  immediately.	  The  default
	      value for	reload-interval	is 900 seconds (15 minutes.)

       -l logfile
	      Specify  a  log file to which hlfsd will record events.  If log-
	      file is the string syslog	then the log messages will be sent  to
	      the  system log daemon by	syslog(3), using the LOG_DAEMON	facil-
	      ity.  This is also the default.

       -n     No verify.  Hlfsd	will not verify	the validity of	 the  symbolic
	      link  it	will  be  returning, or	that the user's	home directory
	      contains sufficient disk-space for spooling.  This can speed  up
	      hlfsd  at	 the cost of possibly returning	symbolic links to home
	      directories which	are not	currently accessible or	are full.   By
	      default,	hlfsd  validates  the symbolic-link in the background.
	      The -n option overrides the meaning of the -c option,  since  no
	      caching is necessary.

       -o mount-options
	      Mount  options.  Mount options which hlfsd will use to mount it-
	      self on top of dirname.  By default,  mount-options  is  set  to
	      "ro".  If	the system supports symbolic-link caching, default op-
	      tions are	set to "ro,nocache".

       -p     Print  PID.   Outputs the	process-id of hlfsd to standard	output
	      where it can be saved into a file.

       -v     Version.	Displays version information to	standard error.

       -x log-options
	      Specify run-time logging options.	 The options are a comma sepa-
	      rated list chosen	from: fatal, error,  user,  warn,  info,  map,
	      stats, all.

       -C     Force  hlfsd  to run on systems that cannot turn off the NFS at-
	      tribute-cache.  Use of this option on those systems is  discour-
	      aged, as it may result in	loss or	mis-delivery of	mail.  The op-
	      tion  is	ignored	 on  systems  that can turn off	the attribute-
	      cache.

       -D log-options
	      Select from a variety of debugging options.  Prefixing an	option
	      with the string no reverses the effect of	that option.   Options
	      are  cumulative.	The most useful	option is all.	Since this op-
	      tion is only used	for debugging other options are	not documented
	      here.  A fuller description is available in the program  source.
	      A	SIGUSR1	sent to	hlfsd will cause it to dump its	internal pass-
	      word map to the file /usr/tmp/hlfsd.dump.XXXXXX.

       -P password-file
	      Read the user-name, user-id, and home directory information from
	      the file password-file.  Normally, hlfsd will use	getpwent(3) to
	      read  the	password database.  This option	allows you to override
	      the default database, and	is useful if you want  to  map	users'
	      mail files to a directory	other than their home directory.  Only
	      the  username,  uid, and home-directory fields of	the file pass-
	      word-file	are read and checked.  All other fields	 are  ignored.
	      The  file	 password-file	must  otherwise	be compliant with Unix
	      System 7 colon-delimited format passwd(4).

FILES
       /hlfs
	    directory under which hlfsd	mounts itself and manages the symbolic
	    link home.

       .hlfsdir
	    default sub-directory in the user's	home directory,	to  which  the
	    home symbolic link returned	by hlfsd points.

       /var/hlfs
	    directory  to which	home symbolic link returned by hlfsd points if
	    it is unable to verify the that user's home	directory is  accessi-
	    ble.

SEE ALSO
       mail(1),	  getgrent(3),	getpwent(3),  mnttab(4),  passwd(4),  mtab(5),
       amd(8), automount(8), cron(8), mount(8),	sendmail(8), umount(8).

       HLFSD: Delivering Email to Your	$HOME,	in  Proc.  LISA-VII,  The  7th
       Usenix System Administration Conference,	November 1993.

       ``am-utils'' info(1) entry.

       Linux   NFS   and   Automounter	Administration	by  Erez  Zadok,  ISBN
       0-7821-2739-8, (Sybex, 2001).

       http://www.am-utils.org

AUTHORS
       Erez Zadok  <ezk@cs.sunysb.edu>,	 Computer  Science  Department,	 Stony
       Brook  University,  Stony  Brook,  New  York, USA.  and Alexander Dupuy
       <dupuy@smarts.com>, System Management ARTS,  White  Plains,  New	 York,
       USA.

       Other  authors  and  contributors to am-utils are listed	in the AUTHORS
       file distributed	with am-utils.

			       14 September 1993		      HLFSD(8)

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