Network Information Service (NIS) B.11.31.02 Administrator's Guide

2 Planning an NIS Network

This chapter describes how to plan the layout of your NIS network. It tells you how to perform

the following tasks:

• “Determining the Number of NIS Domains Required” (page 19)

• “Determining the Number of NIS Servers ” (page 19)

• “Determining the Hosts that will be NIS Servers” (page 19)

Determining the Number of NIS Domains Required

For many sites, all hosts can belong to the same domain and it is not necessary to set up more

than one domain. However, you might want to create multiple domains in the following situations:

• Sites that are divided into multiple administrative departments (like Marketing and Finance)

with a different system administrator for each department where each system administrator

is required to maintain a separate NIS domain

• Sites that are divided into multiple administrative departments, where each department

requires different configuration data and allows access to different users and hosts. To ensure

separation of data and access, you must create a separate NIS domain for each administrative

department.

Determining the Number of NIS Servers

Following are some guidelines for determining the number of NIS servers required in an NIS

network:

• If you want the client to bind through broadcast method, at least one server must be present

in each subnetwork in a domain. However, using the ypinit -c command, you can specify

a list of servers to which the NIS client can bind.

• In general, a server can serve up to 30 NIS clients if the clients and servers run at the same

speed. If the clients are faster than the servers, you will need more servers. If the clients are

slower than the servers, each server can serve 50 or more clients.

Determining the Hosts that will be NIS Servers

Following are some guidelines for determining the hosts that can be NIS servers in an NIS

network:

• Select servers that are reliable and fast.

• Distribute servers appropriately among client networks.

Determining the Number of NIS Domains Required 19