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

Table 1-2 NIS Commands (continued)
DescriptionCommand
Changes a login password that is stored in the NIS passwd map. The password
stored in the NIS passwd map may be different from the one stored on your local
system.
For more information, see yppasswd (1).
yppasswd
Returns the name of the master server for an NIS map and the time at which the
map was built. It also specifies the domain to which the map belongs.
For more information, see yppoll (1M).
yppoll
Copies an NIS map from the NIS master server to each of the NIS slave servers.
The yppush command constructs a list of NIS server host names by reading the
NIS map ypservers within the domain. Keys within the ypservers map are the
host names of the machines on which the NIS servers run. yppush then sends a
"transfer map" request to the NIS server at each host, along with the information
needed by the transfer agent (the program that actually moves the map, ypxfer) to
call back yppush.
For more information, see ypmake (1M) and ypinit (1M).
yppush
Instructs an NIS client process (ypbind) to bind to a specified NIS server. The
ypset command can be used only if ypbind is invoked with the -ypset option.
The ypset command is used to change the binding of the NIS client.
For more information, see ypset (1M).
ypset
Returns the name of the NIS server to which this client is bound, or the name of
the NIS master server for one or more NIS maps. If invoked without arguments,
the ypwhich command prints the host name of the NIS server serving the local
machine.
For more information, see ypwhich (1).
ypwhich
Transfers one or more NIS maps from a master server to the slave server. A slave
server calls ypxfr when yppush is executed on the master server.
For more information, see ypxfr (1M).
ypxfr
Default NIS Source Files
Table 1-3 lists the source files NIS uses, by default, for constructing NIS maps.
Table 1-3 NIS Source Files
DescriptionNIS Source File
A file that maps Internet addresses to the host names. See hosts (4).
/etc/hosts
A list of users on a system, along with the associated passwords,
home directories, and other information. See passwd (4).
/etc/passwd
NIS Naming Service Components 15