linux man page for nss

NSS(5)							     Linux Programmer's Manual							    NSS(5)

NAME
       nss - Name Service Switch configuration file

DESCRIPTION
       Each  call  to  a  function  which retrieves data from a system database like the password or group database is handled by the Name Service
       Switch implementation in the GNU C library.  The various services provided are implemented by independent modules, each of which  naturally
       varies widely from the other.

       The  default  implementations  coming  with  the  GNU C library are by default conservative and do not use unsafe data.	This might be very
       costly in some situations, especially when the databases are large.  Some modules allow the system administrator to request  taking  short-
       cuts if these are known to be safe.  It is then the system administrator's responsibility to ensure the assumption is correct.

       There  are  other modules where the implementation changed over time.  If an implementation used to sacrifice speed for memory consumption,
       it might create problems if the preference is switched.

       The /etc/default/nss file contains a number of variable assignments.  Each variable controls the behavior  of  one  or  more  NSS  modules.
       White spaces are ignored.  Lines beginning with '#' are treated as comments.

       The variables currently recognized are:

       NETID_AUTHORITATIVE = TRUE|FALSE
	      If set to TRUE, the NIS backend for the initgroups(3) function will accept the information from the netid.byname NIS map as authori-
	      tative.  This can speed up the function significantly if the group.byname map is large.  The content of the netid.byname map is used
	      as is.  The system administrator has to make sure it is correctly generated.

       SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE = TRUE|FALSE
	      If  set  to TRUE, the NIS backend for the getservbyname(3) and getservbyname_r(3) functions will assume that the services.byservice-
	      name NIS map exists and is authoritative, particularly that it contains both keys with /proto and without /proto	for  both  primary
	      service names and service aliases.  The system administrator has to make sure it is correctly generated.

       SETENT_BATCH_READ = TRUE|FALSE
	      If  set  to  TRUE, the NIS backend for the setpwent(3) and setgrent(3) functions will read the entire database at once and then hand
	      out the requests one by one from memory with every corresponding getpwent(3) or getgrent(3) call respectively.  Otherwise, each get-
	      pwent(3) or getgrent(3) call might result in a network communication with the server to get the next entry.

FILES
       /etc/default/nss

EXAMPLE
       The default configuration corresponds to the following configuration file:

       NETID_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
       SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
       SETENT_BATCH_READ=FALSE

SEE ALSO
       nsswitch.conf

Linux								    2013-02-13								    NSS(5)