9.3 NSS Commands and Utilities

Command line instructions and utilities are available to control most NSS functions.

9.3.1 Command Consoles

NSS commands and utilities are issued from command line interfaces that are referred to as consoles in this guide. On Linux, all NSS commands and utilities are issued while logged in as the root user or a user with equivalent privileges.

Linux Terminal Console

NSS utilities for Linux are issued at the command prompt of a Linux terminal console.

If you are not running a graphical interface on the server, the terminal console is simply the command line prompt displayed when you log in to the server.

If you are using a graphical interface, you can open a terminal console by using one of these methods:

  • Right-click on the Linux desktop, then select Open Terminal from the menu.

  • From the Linux desktop, click the Computer menu, then select Terminal (Command Line Terminal) from the Applications menu.

NSS Console

The NSS Console (NSSCON, nsscon(8)) utility for Linux provides a command line interface in a console environment familiar to NetWare users. Use it to issue NSS commands and to monitor NSS activity through console messages. For more information, see Section B.5, nsscon.

To start NSSCON, enter the following at a terminal console prompt:

nsscon

9.3.2 NSS Commands

To view a list of NSS commands and options, enter the following command at the NSSCON prompt on Linux:

nss /help

For information about NSS commands, see Section A.0, NSS Commands.

9.3.3 NSS Utilities

The most well-known NSS utilities are the NSS Management Utility (nssmu) for managing storage and the NSS Console (nsscon) utility for issuing NSS commands on Linux. NSS provides other utilities to support more complex command line management tasks for NSS pools and volumes.

For information about NSS utilities, see Section B.0, NSS Utilities.