YP(8) BSD System Manager's Manual YP(8)
NAME
yp -- description of the YP/NIS system
SYNOPSIS
yp
DESCRIPTION
The YP subsystem allows network access to directory information hosted by NIS servers. OS X support is provided through the functions
getpwent(3), getgrent(3), getfsent(3), getnetgrent(3), gethostent(3), getnetent(3), getrpcent(3), getprotoent(3), getservent(3), ethers(3)
and other related functions. Queries to NIS servers are sent by the opendirectoryd daemon. The configuration of NIS clients is further
described in the opendirectoryd(8) manual page.
The YP subsystem is started automatically by launchd(8) if an NIS domain is specified in the /etc/defaultdomain configuration file, and if
the directory /var/yp exists (which it does in the default distribution).
NIS is an RPC-based client/server system that allows a group of machines within an NIS domain to share a common set of configuration files.
This permits a system administrator to set up NIS client systems with only minimal configuration data and add, remove or modify configuration
data from a single location.
The canonical copies of all NIS information are stored on a single machine called the NIS master server. The databases used to store the
information are called NIS maps. A single NIS server can support several domains at once, therefore it is possible to have several such
directories, one for each supported domain. Each domain will have its own independent set of maps.
Client NIS systems receive all NIS data in ASCII form.
There are three main types of NIS systems:
1. NIS clients, which query NIS servers for information.
2. NIS master servers, which maintain the canonical copies of all NIS maps.
3. NIS slave servers, which maintain backup copies of NIS maps that are periodically updated by the master.
OS X systems may be configured as NIS clients, but not as master or slave servers.
A NIS client establishes what is called a binding to a particular NIS server using the ypbind(8) daemon. The ypbind(8) utility checks the
system's default domain (as set by the domainname(1) command) and begins broadcasting RPC requests on the local network. These requests
specify the name of the domain for which ypbind(8) is attempting to establish a binding. If a server that has been configured to serve the
requested domain receives one of the broadcasts, it will respond to ypbind(8), which will record the server's address. If there are several
servers available (a master and several slaves, for example), ypbind(8) will use the address of the first one to respond. From that point
on, the client system will direct all of its NIS requests to that server. The ypbind(8) utility will occasionally ``ping'' the server to
make sure it is still up and running. If it fails to receive a reply to one of its pings within a reasonable amount of time, ypbind(8) will
mark the domain as unbound and begin broadcasting again in the hopes of locating another server.
NIS master and slave servers handle all NIS requests with the ypserv(8) daemon. The ypserv(8) utility is responsible for receiving incoming
requests from NIS clients, translating the requested domain and map name to a path to the corresponding database file and transmitting data
from the database back to the client. There is a specific set of requests that ypserv(8) is designed to handle, most of which are imple-
mented as functions within the standard system libraries:
yp_order() check the creation date of a particular map
yp_master() obtain the name of the NIS master server for a given map/domain
yp_match() lookup the data corresponding to a given in key in a particular map/domain
yp_first() obtain the first key/data pair in a particular map/domain
yp_next() pass ypserv(8) a key in a particular map/domain and have it return the key/data pair immediately following it (the functions
yp_first() and yp_next() can be used to do a sequential search of an NIS map)
yp_all() retrieve the entire contents of a map
There are a few other requests which ypserv(8) is capable of handling (i.e., acknowledge whether or not you can handle a particular domain
(YPPROC_DOMAIN), or acknowledge only if you can handle the domain and be silent otherwise (YPPROC_DOMAIN_NONACK)) but these requests are usu-
ally generated only by ypbind(8) and are not meant to be used by standard utilities.
HISTORY
The YP subsystem was written from the ground up by Theo de Raadt to be compatible to Sun's implementation. Bug fixes, improvements and NIS
server support were later added by Bill Paul. The server-side code was originally written by Peter Eriksson and Tobias Reber and is subject
to the GNU Public License. No Sun code was referenced.
OS X NIS client software is derived from FreeBSD.
BSD
April 5, 1993 BSD