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

4 Configuring and Administering an NIS Slave Server
This chapter describes how to configure an NIS slave server to provide system
information from the NIS maps to the NIS clients in an NIS domain.
In an NIS domain, you must configure at least one host as an NIS slave server to attend
to NIS clients when the NIS master server is busy or unavailable. The NIS slave servers
maintain copies of the NIS master server’s maps, and removes the load from the NIS
master server by attending to requests from NIS clients, which are bound to the
configured slave servers..
The NIS master server must be configured before configuring the NIS slave server.
This chapter addresses the following topics:
• “Modifying the Slave Server passwd File” (page 45)
• “Modifying Slave Server group File” (page 46)
• “Enabling the NIS Slave Server” (page 47)
• “Verifying the NIS Slave Server Configuration” (page 48)
• “Scheduling Regular Map Transfers from the NIS Master Server” (page 48)
• “Allowing Selected Clients to Access the Slave Server” (page 49)
For information on removing the slave server, see “Removing a Slave Server from the
NIS Domain” (page 39).
Modifying the Slave Server passwd File
This section describes how to modify the /etc/passwd file in the NIS slave server.
Modifying the /etc/passwd file in the NIS slaver server is optional. Modifying the
NIS slave server /etc/passwd file enables the host running the NIS slave server to
use the information in the NIS maps to validate a user's login information using the
configured NIS domain instead of the local passwd file. If you do not modify the local
passwd file, only those users defined in the local /etc/passwd file can log into the
host. The users defined in the NIS maps are not recognized.
Following is a sample /etc/passwd file on an NIS slave server:
root:0AnhFBmriKvHA:0:3::/:/bin/ksh
daemon:*:1:5::/:/bin/sh
bin:*:2:2::/bin:/bin/sh
adm:*:4:4::/usr/adm:/bin/sh
uucp:*:5:3::/usr/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico
lp:*:9:7::/usr/spool/lp:/bin/sh
hpdb:*:27:1:ALLBASE:/:/bin/sh
where:
root
is the login name.
0AnhFBmriKvHA
is the encrypted password.
Modifying the Slave Server passwd File 45