OSF DCE Administration Guide--Core Components

Introduction to the DCE Directory Service
• When using a name that is within your cell, you can omit the cell name and include
the /.: prefix.
• When using a name that is outside of your cell, enter its global syntax, including the
/... prefix and the cell name.
• When someone asks for the name of a resource in your cell, give its global name,
including the /... prefix.
• When storing a name in persistent storage (for example, in a shell script), use its
global name, including the /... prefix. Local names (that is, names with a /.: prefix)
are intended only for interactive use and should not be stored. (If a local name is
referenced from within a foreign cell, the /.: prefix is resolved to the name of the
foreign cell and the resulting name lookup either fails or produces the wrong name.)
11.4.5 Cell-Relative Naming in a Hierarchy of Cells
In a hierarchy of cells, cell-relative names and local names may not be the same. A
parent cell can reference a name in a child cell by using cell-relative naming (/.: ).
Consequently, you can no longer determine whether a cell is in your local cell by merely
looking at its name. In the following example, the child cell (eng) is named relative to
its parent cell:
/.:/eng
This type of naming allows you to access names in a child cell (for example,
/.:/eng/hosts/admin) from the parent cell, without having to specify the global name of
the cell.
Note: When referencing names in a child cell from a parent cell, you should be
mindful that your status is that of a foreign user. Therefore, the child cell
may have access controls imposed on it that will deny you access to its
namespace.
11.4.6 Local Filenames
When referring to pathnames of files in the local cell, you can shorten a local name even
further by using the /: prefix. This prefix translates to the root of the cell file system.
The default name of the file system root is /.:/fs, which is one level down from the root of
the cell namespace. So, for example, the following are all valid ways to refer to the
same file from within the /.../widget.com cell:
/.../widget.com/fs/smith/myfile
/.:/fs/smith/myfile
/:/smith/myfile
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