Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP)

NIS ElementsThe NIS naming service is composed of the following elements:■ Domains (see “The NIS Domain” on page 70)■ Daemons (see “NIS Daemons” on page 70)■ Utilities (see “NIS Utilities” on page 71)■ Maps (see “NIS Maps” on page 71)■ NIS Command Set (see “NIS-Related Commands” on page 75)The NIS DomainAn NIS domain is a collection of machines which share a common set of NIS maps.Each domain has a domain name and each machine sharing the common set of mapsbelongs to that domain.Any machine can belong to a given domain, as long as there is a server for thatdomain’s maps in the same network. An NIS client machine obtains its domain nameand binds to an NIS server as part of its boot process.NIS DaemonsNIS service is provided by five daemons as shown in Table 4–1. The NIS service ismanaged by the Service Management Facility. Administrative actions on this service,such as enabling, disabling, or restarting, can be performed by using the svcadmcommand. For an overview of SMF, refer to “Managing Services (Overview)” inSystem Administration Guide: Basic Administration. Also refer to the svcadm(1M) andsvcs(1) man pages for more details.TABLE 4–1 NIS DaemonsDaemonypservypbindypxfrdrpc.yppasswddrpc.ypupdatedFunctionServer processBinding processHigh speed map transferNIS password update daemon** See NOTE below.**Modifies other maps such as publickey70 System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP) • January 2005