Configuring Nis Clients - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 10 SP2 - DEPLOYMENT GUIDE 08-05-2008 Deployment Manual

33
Using NIS
As soon as multiple UNIX systems in a network want to access common resources, it
becomes important that all user and group identities are the same for all machines in
that network. The network should be transparent to users: whatever machines they use,
they always find themselves in exactly the same environment. This can be done by
means of NIS and NFS services. NFS distributes file systems over a network.
NIS (Network Information Service) can be described as a database-like service that
provides access to the contents of /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/group
across networks. NIS can also be used for other purposes (making the contents of files
like /etc/hosts or /etc/services available, for example), but this is beyond
the scope of this introduction. People often refer to NIS as YP, because it works like
the network's "yellow pages."

33.1 Configuring NIS Clients

Use the YaST module NIS Client to configure a workstation to use NIS. Select whether
the host has a static IP address or receives one issued by DHCP. DHCP can also provide
the NIS domain and the NIS server. If a static IP address is used, specify the NIS domain
and the NIS server manually. See Figure 33.1, "Setting Domain and Address of a NIS
Server" (page 660). Find makes YaST search for an active NIS server in your whole
network. Depending on the size of your local network, this may be a time-consuming
process. Broadcast asks for a NIS server in the local network after the specified servers
fail to respond.
Using NIS 659