Network Information Service (NIS) B.11.31.04 Administrator's Guide

1 Introduction
This chapter describes the Network Information Service (NIS) and its features. It also
discusses the components in an NIS network.
This chapter addresses the following topics:
• “Overview” (page 11)
• “NIS Network Components” (page 11)
• “NIS Naming Service Components” (page 13)
• “NIS Binding” (page 16)
• “Information Flow in an NIS Network” (page 16)
• “Startup Scripts in NIS Services” (page 18)
• “Features in NIS” (page 19)
Overview
NIS (also known as Yellow Pages or YP) is a client/server directory service protocol
that enables you to maintain a centralized repository of system information, such as
hosts, users, passwords, and other user-defined information. To know about the different
types of system information NIS maintains, see Table 1-3 (page 15).
NIS provides centralized management of common configuration information. With
NIS, configuration files are modified in a common place and distributed across the
network. Therefore, systems that are configured to look up NIS, refers to the same data.
NOTE: NIS is not supported across WAN links (such as X.25 and SLIP).
NIS Network Components
This section discusses the components in an NIS network.
The NIS network consists of the following components:
• NIS Master Server
• NIS Slave Server
• NIS Client
NIS Master Server
An NIS master server holds the source files for all the NIS maps in the domain. NIS
maps are databases that contain system information. Any changes to the NIS maps
must be made on the NIS master server. The NIS master server supplies the NIS slave
servers with up-to-date maps. It also services requests generated by the NIS clients.
For more information about NIS maps, see “NIS Maps” (page 13). An NIS master
server can also function as an NIS client.
Overview 11