NSCD.CONF(5)							File Formats Manual						      NSCD.CONF(5)

NAME

       nscd.conf - configuration file for Name Service Caching Daemon

DESCRIPTION

       /etc/nscd.conf  configures  the	caches	used by nscd(8) as well as some generic options.  nscd(8) is able to use a configuration file at a
       different location, when supplied with the -f or --config-file command line option.

       The configuration file consists of a set of lines.  Empty lines, and text after a '#' is ignored.  All remaining lines denote  the  setting
       of an option.  White space before and after options, and between options and option arguments is ignored.

       There  are  two	kinds  of  options:  General  options  influence  nscd(8)'s general behaviour, while cache related options only affect the
       specified cache. Options are set like this:

	 general_option option
	 cache_option cache_name option

GENERAL OPTIONS

       logfile file
	      Specifies the name of the debug log-file that nscd(8) should use if debug-level is higher than  0.   If  this  option  is  not  set,
	      nscd(8) will write its debug output to stderr.

       debug-level level
	      If level is higher than 0, nscd(8) will create some debug output. The higher the level, the more verbose the output.

       threads #threads
	      This  option  sets  the number of threads that nscd(8) should use by default. It can be overridden by calling nscd(8) with the -t or
	      --nthreads argument. If neither this configuration option nor the command line argument is given, nscd(8) uses 5 threads by default.
	      The minimum is 3. More threads means more simultaneous connections that nscd(8) can handle.

       max-threads #threads
	      Specifies the maximum number of threads to be started.

       server-user user
	      By default, nscd(8) is run as user root. This option can be set to force nscd(8) to drop root privileges after startup. It cannot be
	      used when nscd(8) is called with the -S or --secure argument. Also note that some services require that nscd run as root,  so  using
	      this may break those lookup services.

       stat-user user
	      Specifies the user who is allowed to request statistics.

       paranoia bool
	      bool must be one of yes or no.  Enabling paranoia mode causes nscd(8) to restart itself periodically.

       restart-interval time
	      Sets the restart interval to time seconds if periodic restart is enabled by enabling paranoia mode. The default value is 3600.

CACHE OPTIONS

       All  cache options take two arguments. The first one denotes the service or cache the option should affect. Currently service can be one of
       passwd, group, or hosts.

       enable-cache service bool
	      bool must be one of yes or no.  Each cache is disabled by default and must be enabled explicitly by setting this options to yes.

       positive-time-to-live service secs
	      This is the number of seconds after which a cached entry is removed from the cache. This defaults to 3600 seconds (i. e.	one hour).

       negative-time-to-live service secs
	      If an entry is not found by the Name Service, it is added to the cache and marked as "not existent". This option sets the number	of
	      seconds  after  which  such  a  not  existent entry is removed from the cache. This defaults to 20 seconds for the password and host
	      caches and to 60 seconds for the group cache.

       suggested-size service prime-number
	      This option sets the size of the hash that is used to store the cache entries. As this is a hash, it  should  be	reasonably  larger
	      than  the maximum number of entries that is expected to be cached simultaneously and should be a prime number. It defaults to a size
	      of 211 entries.

       check-files service bool
	      bool must be one of yes (default) or no.	If file checking  is  enabled,	nscd(8)  periodically  checks  the  modification  time	of
	      /etc/passwd,  /etc/group,  or  /etc/hosts (for the passwd, group, and host cache respectively) and invalidates the cache if the file
	      has changed since the last check.

       persistent service bool
	      bool must be one of yes (default) or no.	Keep the content of the cache for service over nscd(8) restarts. Useful when paranoia mode
	      is set.

       shared service bool
	      bool must be one of yes (default) or no.	The memory mapping of the nscd(8) databases for service is shared with the clients so that
	      they can directly search in them instead of having to ask the daemon over the socket each time a lookup is performed.

       reload-count #number
	      Sets the number of times a cached record is reloaded before it is pruned from the cache. Each cache record has a timeout, when  that
	      timeout expires, nscd(8) will either reload it (query the NSS service again if the data hasn't changed), or drop it.

       max-db-size service number-of-bytes
	      Sets the maximum allowable size for the service.

       auto-propagate service bool
	      When  set  to no for passwd or group service, then the .byname requests are not added to passwd.byuid or group.bygid cache. This may
	      help for tables containing multiple records for the same id.

EXAMPLE

       # This is a comment.

	   logfile		   /var/log/nscd.log
	   threads		   6
	   server-user		   nobody
	   debug-level		   0

	   enable-cache 	   passwd	   yes
	   positive-time-to-live   passwd	   600
	   negative-time-to-live   passwd	   20
	   suggested-size	   passwd	   211
	   check-files		   passwd	   yes

	   enable-cache 	   group	   yes
	   positive-time-to-live   group	   3600
	   negative-time-to-live   group	   60
	   suggested-size	   group	   211
	   check-files		   group	   yes

	   enable-cache 	   hosts	   yes
	   positive-time-to-live   hosts	   3600
	   negative-time-to-live   hosts	   20
	   suggested-size	   hosts	   211
	   check-files		   hosts	   yes

SEE ALSO

       nscd(8), nsswitch.conf(5)

4.2 Berkeley Distribution					  07 January 2001						      NSCD.CONF(5)