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Name

nisfiles - NIS+ database files and directory structure

Synopsis

/var/nis

Description

The Network Information Service Plus (NIS+ ) uses a memory based, replicated database. This database uses a set of files in the /var/nis directory for checkpointing to table storage and for maintaining a transaction log. Additionally, the NIS+ server and client use files in this directory to store binding and state information.

The NIS+ service implements an authentication and authorization system that is built upon Secure RPC. In this implementation, the service uses a table named cred.org_dir.domain-name to store the public and private keys of principals that are authorized to access the NIS+ namespace. It stores group access information in the subdomain groups_dir.domain-name as group objects. These two tables appear as files in the /var/nis/data directory on the NIS+ server.

Unlike the previous versions of the network information service in NIS+, the information in the tables is initially loaded into the service from the ASCII files on the server and then updated using NIS+ utilities (nistbladm -D). Some sites may wish to periodically regenerate the ASCII files for archival purposes. To do this, a script should be added in the crontab(1) of the server that lists these tables and creates the ASCII file from the result.

Note: Except for the NIS_COLDSTART and NIS_SHARED_DIRCACHE file, no other files should be manipulated by commands such as cp(1) , mv(1) or rm(1) . The transaction log file keeps logs of all changes made, and hence the files cannot be manipulated independently.

The files described below are stored in the /var/nis directory:

NIS_COLDSTART
This file contains NIS+ directory objects that are to be preloaded into the NIS+ cache at startup time. This file is usually created at NIS+ installation time. See nisinit(1M) or nisclient(1M) .
NIS_SHARED_DIRCACHE
This file contains the current cache of NIS+ bindings being maintained by the cache manager. The contents can be viewed with nisshowcache(1M) .
trans.log
This file contains a transaction log that is maintained by the NIS+ service. It can be viewed using the nislog(1M) command. This file contains holes. Its apparent size may be a lot higher than its actual size. There is only one transaction log per server.
data.dict
This file is a dictionary that is used by the NIS+ database to locate its files. It is created by the default NIS+ database package.
data.dict.log
This is the log file for the database dictionary. When the server is checkpointed (nisping -C), this file will be deleted.
data
This directory contains databases that the server uses.
data/root.object
On root servers, this file contains a directory object that describes the root of the name space.
data/parent.object
On root servers, this file contains a directory object that describes the parent namespace. This file is created by the nisinit(1M) command.
data/table_name
For each table in the directory there will be a file with the same name that stores the information about that table. If there are subdirectories within this directory, the database for the table is stored in the file table_name.subdirectory.
data/table_name.log
This file contains the database log for the table table_name. The log file maintains the state of individual transactions to each database. When a database has been checkpointed (that is, all changes have been made to the data/table_name stable storage), this log file will be deleted.
Currently,
NIS+ does not automatically do checkpointing. The system administrator may want to do nisping -C (see nisping(1M) ) operations periodically (such as, once a day) to checkpoint the log file. This can be done either through a cron(1M) job, or manually.
data/root_dir
On root servers, this file stores the database associated with the root directory. It is similar to other table databases. The corresponding log file is called root_dir.log.
data/cred.org_dir
This table contains the credentials of principals in this NIS+ domain.
data/groups_dir
This table contains the group authorization objects needed by NIS+ to authorize group access.
data/serving_list
This file contains a list of all NIS+ directories that are being served by the NIS+ server on this server. When this server is added or deleted from any NIS+ directory object, this file is updated by the server.

See Also

cp(1) , crontab(1) , mv(1) , nis+(1) , niscat(1) , nismatch(1) , nistbladm(1) , rm(1) , cron(1M) , nisclient(1M) , nisinit(1M) , nislog(1M) , nisping(1M) , nisshowcache(1M) , nis_db(3N) , nis_objects(3N)

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