Preface

NIS+ and FNS Administration Guide describes how to customize and administer an existing NIS+ or FNS namespace.

This manual is part of the Solaris^(TM) 2.x System and Network Administration documentation set.

Who Should Use This Book

This book is written primarily for system and network administrators, It assumes the reader is an experienced system administrator. MIS managers can also use this book to evaluate NIS+.

Although this manual introduces concepts relevant to NIS+, it makes no attempt to explain networking fundamentals or to describe the administration tools offered by the Solaris environment. If you administer networks, this manual assumes you already know how they work and have already chosen your favorite tools.

How This Book Is Organized

This manual is organized into four parts:

Part 1 -- NIS+ Introduction and Overview Part 1 gives an overview of name services and describes NIS+:

Chapter 1, "Introduction to Name Services," describes what name services do and compares DNS, NIS, and NIS+.

Chapter 2, "The NIS+ Namespace," introduces the Network Information Service Plus namespace.

Chapter 3, "NIS+ Tables and Information," describes the structure and contents of the NIS+ tables.

Chapter 4, "Security Overview," describes the NIS+ security system, how it affects the entire NIS+ namespace, and how to administer NIS+ security.

Part 2 --Administering NIS+

Part 2 describes how to administer a functioning NIS+ namespace.

Chapter 5, "Administering NIS+ Credentials," describes how to use the commands that administer NIS+ credentials.

Chapter 6, "Administering NIS+ Keys," describes how to use the commands that administer NIS+ keys.

Chapter 7, "Administering NIS+ Access Rights," describes how to use the commands that administer access rights to NIS+ objects and entries.

Chapter 8, "Administering Passwords," describes how to use the commands that administer passwords and password aging.

Chapter 9, "Administering NIS+ Groups," describes how to use the commands that administer NIS+ groups.

Chapter 10, "Administering NIS+ Directories," describes how to use the commands that administer NIS+ directories.

Chapter 11, "Administering NIS+ Tables," describes how to use the commands that administer NIS+ tables

Chapter 12, "The Name Service Switch," describes the software and files that determine which information sources the name services use.

Part 3 -- Administering FNS

Part 3 describes how to administer a functioning FNS namespace.

Chapter 14, "Administering FNS in NIS+," describes how to set up and administer an FNS implementation on top of an NIS+ environment.

Chapter 15, "Federating NIS+ With Global Naming Systems," describes how to federate NIS+ with DNS and X.500.

Chapter 16, "Administering the File System Namespace," describes how to create file contexts.

Chapter 17, "Administering the Printer Namespace," describes how to administer the printer context.

Part 4 -- Appendices Part 4 contains NIS+ appendices and a glossary:

Appendix A, "Problems and Solutions," describes various types of problems that an NIS+ administrator may encounter and how to solve those problems.

Appendix B, "Error Messages," provides an alphabetic listing of the most commonly encountered error messages.

Appendix C, "Information in NIS+ Tables," summarizes the contents of the standard NIS+ tables.

"Glossary," defines NIS+ and related terms.

Related Books

• NIS+ and DNS Setup and Configuration Guide--Describes how to set up, and configure NIS+ and DNS.
• NIS+ Transition Guide--Describes how to make the transition from NIS to NIS+.

Additional books not part of the Solaris 2.4 documentation set:

• DNS and Bind by Cricket Liu and Paul Albitz, (O'Reilly, 1992).
• Managing NFS and NIS by Hal Stern, (O'Reilly, 1993).

What Typographic Changes and Symbols Mean

The following table describes the typographic changes used in this book.

Table P-1

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files. machine_name% You have mail.
AaBbCc123	What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output	machine_name%su Password:
AaBbCc123	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	To delete a file, type rm filename.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new words or terms, or words to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P-2

Shell	Prompt
C shell prompt	machine_name%
C shell superuser prompt	machine_name#
Bourne shell and Korn shell prompt	$
Bourne shell and Korn shell superuser prompt	#