Conventions used in this book (Managing NFS and NIS, 2nd Edition)

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0.4. Conventions used in this book

Font and format conventions for Unix commands, utilities, and system calls are:

Excerpts from script or configuration files will be shown in a constant-width font:
```
192.9.200.1   bitatron
```

Sample interactive sessions, showing command-line input and corresponding output, will be shown in a constant-width font, with user-supplied input in bold:
```
% ls 
foobar
```

If the command can be typed by any user, the percent sign (%) will be shown as the prompt. If the command must be executed by the superuser, then the pound sign (#) will be shown as the prompt:
```
# /usr/sbin/ypinint -m
```

If a particular command must be typed on a particular machine, the prompt will include a hostname:
```
bitatron# mount wahoo:/export /mnt
```

Inside of an excerpt from a script, configuration file, or other ASCII file, the pound sign will be used to indicate the beginning of a comment (unless the configuration file requires a different comment character, such as an asterisk (*)):
```
# 
#Hal's machine 
192.9.200.1   bitatron
```

Unix commands and command lines are printed in italics when they appear in the body of a paragraph. For example, the ls command lists files in a directory.

Hostnames are printed in italics. For example, server wahoo contains home directories.

Filenames are printed in italics, for example, the /etc/passwd file.

NIS map names and mount options are printed in italics. The passwd map is used with the /etc/passwd file, and the timeo mount option changes NFS client behavior.

System and library calls are printed in italics, with parentheses to indicate that they are C routines. For example, the gethostent( ) library call locates a hostname in an NIS map.

Control characters will be shown with a CTRL prefix, for example, CTRL-Z.