HP-UX Reference (11i v2 04/09) - 1M System Administration Commands N-Z (vol 4)

n
nisinit(1M) nisinit(1M)
NAME
nisinit - NIS+ client and server initialization utility
SYNOPSIS
nisinit -r
nisinit -p Y |D |N
parent_domain host ...
nisinit -c -H host |
-B | -C coldstart
DESCRIPTION
nisinit initializes a machine to be a NIS+ client or an NIS+ root master server. It may be easier to use
nisclient (1M) or nisserver (1M) to accomplish this same task.
Options
-r Initialize the machine to be a NIS+ root server. This option creates the file
/var/nis/root.object
and initializes it to contain information about this machine. It uses the
sysinfo() system call to retrieve the name of the default domain.
To initialize the machine as an NIS+ root server, it is advisable to use the
-r option of
nisserver (1M), instead of using
nisinit -r.
-p Y|D|Nparent_domain host . . .
This option is used on a root server to initialize a /var/nis/parent.object
to make this
domain a part of the namespace above it. Only root servers can have parent objects. A parent
object describes the namespace ‘‘above’’ the NIS+ root. If this is an isolated domain, this option
should not be used. The argument to this option tells the command what type of name server is
serving the domain above the NIS+ domain. When clients attempt to resolve a name that is outside
of the NIS+ namespace, this object is returned with the error
NIS_FOREIGNNS
indicating that a
name space boundary has been reached. It is up to the client to continue the name resolution pro-
cess.
The parameter parent_domain is the name of the parent domain in a syntax that is native to that
type of domain. The list of host names that follow the domain parameter are the names of hosts that
serve the parent domain. If there is more than one server for a parent domain, the first host
specified should be the master server for that domain.
Y Specifies that the parent directory is a NIS version 2 domain.
D Specifies that the parent directory is a DNS domain.
N Specifies that the parent directory is another NIS+ domain. This option is useful for connecting
a pre-existing NIS+ subtree into the global namespace.
Note that in the current implementation, the NIS+ clients do not take advantage of the
-p feature.
Also, since the parent object is currently not replicated on root replica servers, it is recommended
that this option not be used.
-c Initializes the machine to be a NIS+ client. There are three initialization options available: initial-
ize by coldstart, initialize by hostname, and initialize by broadcast. The most secure mechanism is
to initialize from a trusted coldstart file. The second option is to initialize using a hostname that
you specify as a trusted host. The third method is to initialize by broadcast and it is the least secure
method.
-C coldstart
Causes the file coldstart to be used as a prototype coldstart file when initializing a NIS+ client.
This coldstart file can be copied from a machine that is already a client of the NIS+
namespace. For maximum security, an administrator can encrypt and encode (with uuen-
code(1)) the coldstart file and mail it to an administrator bringing up a new machine. The new
administrator would then decode (with uudecode()), decrypt, and then use this file with the
nisinit command to initialize the machine as an NIS+ client. If the coldstart file is from
another client in the same domain, the nisinit command may be safely skipped and the file
copied into the /var/nis directory as /var/nis/NIS_COLD_START.
-H hostname
Specifies that the host hostname should be contacted as a trusted NIS+ server. The nisinit
command will iterate over each transport in the NETPATH environment variable and attempt
to contact rpcbind(1M) on that machine. This hostname must be reachable from the client
without the name service running. For IP networks this means that there must be an entry in
HP-UX 11i Version 2: September 2004 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 1M−−559