HP-UX Reference (11i v2 03/08) - 1M System Administration Commands N-Z (vol 4)

y
ypserv(1M) ypserv(1M)
NAME
ypserv, ypbind, ypxfrd - Network Information Service (NIS) server, binder, and transfer processes
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypserv
[-l log_file]
/usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypbind
[-l log_file][-s][-ypset-ypsetme][-broadcast
]
/usr/sbin/ypxfrd
Remarks
The Network Information Service (NIS) was formerly known as Yellow Pages (YP). The functionality
remains the same; only the name has changed.
DESCRIPTION
The Network Information Service (NIS) provides a simple network lookup service consisting of databases
and processes. The databases are files in a directory tree rooted at
/var/yp (see ypfiles(4)). The
processes are
/usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypserv
, the NIS database lookup server, and
/usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypbind
, the NIS binder. Both ypserv and ypbind are daemon processes
activated at system startup time when the
NIS_MASTER_SERVER or
NIS_SLAVE_SERVER variable is
set to 1, for
ypserv, and the
NIS_CLIENT variable is set to 1, for ypbind, in the
/etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs
file.
The NIS programmatic interface is described in ypclnt(3C). Administrative tools are described in
ypwhich(1), yppoll (1M), yppush(1M), ypset (1M) and ypxfr(1M). Tools to see the contents of NIS maps
(databases) are described in ypcat(1) and ypmatch (1). Database generation and maintenance tools are
described in makedbm(1M), ypinit(1M), and ypmake(1M). The command to set or show the default NIS
domain is domainname(1).
ypxfrd transfers entire NIS maps in an efficient manner. For systems that use this daemon, map
transfers will be faster, depending on the map. ypxfrd should be run on a server running HP-UX
release 10.0. ypxfr (see ypxfr (1M)) will attempt to use ypxfrd first. If that fails, it will use the older
transfer method. The ypxfrd daemon is activated at system startup time when the
NIS_MASTER_SERVER
or NIS_SLAVE_SERVER variable is set to 1 in the
/etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs
file.
The
ypserv daemon’s primary function is to look up information in its local collection of NIS maps. It
runs only on NIS server machines providing data from NIS databases. Communication to and from
ypserv is by means of RPC. Lookup functions are described in ypclnt (3C).
Four lookup functions perform on a specific map within a NIS domain:
Match, Get_first,
Get_next, and Get_all. The Match operation matches a key to a record in the database and returns
its associated value. The Get_first operation returns the first key-value pair (record) from the map,
and Get_next enumerates (sequentially retrieves) the remainder of the records.
Get_all returns all
records in the map to the requester as the response to a single RPC request.
Two other functions supply information about the map other than normal map entries:
Get_order_number and Get_master_name. The order number is the time of last modification of a
map. The master name is the host name of the machine on which the master map is stored. Both order
number and master name exist in the map as special key-value pairs, but the server does not return these
through the normal lookup functions. (If you examine the map with
makedbm or yppoll (see
makedbm(1M) or yppoll(1M)), they will be visible.) Other functions are used within the NIS system and
are not of general interest to NIS clients. They include:
Do_you_serve_this_domain?
Transfer_map
Reinitialize_internal_state
The ypbind daemon remembers information that lets client processes on its machine communicate with
a ypserv process. The ypbind daemon must run on every machine using NIS services, both NIS
servers and clients. The ypserv daemon may or may not be running on a NIS client machine, but it
must be running somewhere on the network or be available through a gateway.
The information that
ypbind remembers is called a binding: the association of a NIS domain name
with the Internet address of the NIS server and the port on that host at which the ypserv process is
listening for service requests. This information is cached in the directory /var/yp/binding using a
filename in the form domainname.version.
HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 1M−−939