Lesson 11

Network Concepts Conclusion

In this module, you examined the NIS system for sharing configuration information across a UNIX network. Now that you’ve completed this module, you should be able to:

List the reasons for using NIS on a UNIX system
Describe how NIS works
List the critical configuration files NIS uses
List the main NIS commands
Describe how to integrate NIS into a UNIX system
Set up a NIS master server and several NIS clients
Enable network users to change their passwords
Add new users to an NIS database
Troubleshoot NIS problems

Key terms

In this module, we used the following terms:

NIS: Network Information System (NIS) is a system for creating a distributed computing environment on a local network. NIS provides a network database of important configuration information and helps bind a network of machines into a single usable entity.
NIS map: NIS maps are a collection of database files that represent the data shared by the members of an NIS domain.

Commands and daemons

In this module, we discussed the following commands and daemons:

Command	Purpose
`Nisdomainname (on Linux)` `domainname` (on other types of UNIX)	Queries and sets the NIS domain name
`make`	Rebuilds NIS maps after a change
`makedbm`	Creates NIS maps
`ypcat`	Lists NIS maps from the NIS server
`ypmatch`	Looks up a key in an NIS map
`yppasswd`	Changes passwords in the NIS passwd map
`ypwhich`	Displays NIS server that `ypbind` is consulting

Daemon	Purpose
`ypbind`	NIS client process
`ypserv`	NIS server process
`rpc.yppasswd`	Updates the NIS password map to change user passwords

Network Information Service - Quiz

Click the Quiz link below to take a multiple-choice quiz covering what you’re learned in this module.
Network Information Service - Quiz