Abstract
As soon as multiple UNIX systems in a network access common resources, it becomes imperative that all user and group identities are the same for all machines in that network. The network should be transparent to users: their environments should not vary, regardless of which machine they are actually using. This can be done by means of NIS and NFS services. NFS distributes file systems over a network and is discussed in Chapter 26, Sharing File Systems with NFS (↑Administration Guide).
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.”
For configuring NIS servers, see the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administration Guide.
To use NIS on a workstation, do the following:
Start ++.
Activate the button.
Enter the NIS domain. This is usually a domain name given by your administrator or a static IP address received by DHCP.
Enter your NIS servers and separate their addresses by spaces. If you do not know your NIS server, click on to let YaST search for any NIS servers in your domain. Depending on the size of your local network, this may be a time-consuming process. asks for a NIS server in the local network after the specified servers fail to respond.
Depending on your local installation, you may also want to activate the automounter. This option also installs additional software if required.
If you do not want other hosts to be able to query which server your
client is using, go to the settings and
disable . By checking
, the client is enabled to receive
replies from a server communicating through an unprivileged port. For
further information, see
man ypbind.
Click to save them and return to the YaST control center. Your client is now configured with NIS.