SUMMARY: NIS+ maps

From: Vikram Keshavamurthy (vikram@miel.mot.com)
Date: Wed Oct 21 1998 - 02:45:21 CDT


Hi all,

Thanks to the following persons for reponding to my posting :

Sabrina Downard <sabrina@wwa.com>
jsturges@gmri.com
Marco Greene <cmgreene@netcom.ca>

I was able to link the root master domains aliases table to the non-root
master domain's with the help of the command :

 nisln mail_aliases.org_dir.mydomain.com.
mail_aliases.org_dir.dom1.mydomain.com.
(make sure you have deleted the existing table
mail_aliases.org_dir.dom1.mydomain.com.)
and it worked !!

Thanks to Sabrina Downard and jsturges@gmri.com in particular for valuable
suggestions, I would like to quote in their own words :
------------
jsturges@gmri.com wrote :
Hello,
There is no such thing as a "common" NIS+ table (yes, they are tables, not
maps. Do not confuse the two.) The tables for a given domain belong
solely to that domain.

If you wish to share table data between domains like that, you need to do
one of the following:
* Use links ('man nisln')
* Use table paths
* Set the NIS_PATH environment variable.

The implementation of these is too much to discuss in e-mail, and will
depend greatly on your environment. Please read your NIS+ documentation
thoroughly. Even though it's old, you may wish to read the NIS+ book by
Ramsey.

good luck,
Jonathan

-----------
Sabrina Downard <sabrina@wwa.com> wrote :

Sure, that's reasonably easy to do. Just use either a link object or a
search path in NIS+.

If you have the "All About Administering NIS+" book (2nd ed.), info on
search paths and links is on page 131. Also, if you have an opportunity
to take the Sun Educational Services NIS+ class, it's a great class and
you learn about all the little details and how to plan a NIS+ hierarchy.
The thing about NIS+ is due to its hierarchical structure, each domain and
sub-domain is completely independent of the others, so information won't
propagate from one domain to another unless you specifically force it to.

Basically, a search path is a way of saying "If you don't find the
information in this table, search this other table." Be *very very*
careful of creating recursive search paths -- for example, don't have the
search path on table A set to table B and then set the search path of
table B to table A, because then if it can't find a record in either it'll
loop infinitely. Paths use more resources than link objects, but it's
worthwhile if you have data that are unique to both your domains. Use the
nistbladm -p command to set search paths up.

A link object works basically the same way as a symbolic link in a
unix filesystem. For example, aliases.org_dir.sub.root.com. could be a
link to aliases.org_dir.root.com., and that would mean you only have
one table. Disadvantage is that you can't have unique data (so if you
created an alias in one domain, it would have to exist in all the
domains using the link object). Use the nisln command to create link
objects.

Hope this helps! :) Let me know if you want more info.

-----------

Regards
Vikram

> My Question was :
>
> Subject: NIS+ maps
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I have installed a nis+ root master server for domain mydomain.com and
> non-root master server for domain dom1.mydomain.com. The aliases maps of
> root master server which are supposed to be comman for the entire
> organisation doesn't seem to be propagated to the non-root master and
> hence I have to create a separate alias maps for the subdomain
> dom1.mydomain.com and each time I add an alias , I need to add them
> both on the root master and non-root master ?
>
> Can anyone suggest me doing this in a proper way , as I don't feel I am
> doing the right thing as of now .....
>
> Thanks & Regards
> Vikram
>
> --
> Vikram K
> Senior Systems & Network Engineer
> System & Network Engineering Department
> Motorola India Electronics Ltd.
>
> email: A13241@email.mot.com
> Ph:91-80-559 8615
> Fx:91-80-559 8660



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