Hack #8. Authenticate NFS-Lovers with NIS
If you're using NFS, using its companion authentication mechanism may be the right way to go.
The Network Information System (NIS) is a distributed authentication mechanism that was originally developed by Sun Microsystems and is most commonly used in conjunction with the file-sharing protocol NFS [Hack #56] . NIS enables all of the machines in a computing environment to share access to a centralized collection of authentication-related files and service configuration information, known as "maps." Each NIS map is typically provided in several different ways, each organized to optimize a specific type of access to that information, such as lookups by name or by some unique numeric component (such as being able to access a group map by group ID, a host's map by address, and so on).
Tip
NIS+, also from Sun Microsystems, is the successor to NIS. Much like LDAP, it organizes information hierarchically. Unfortunately, NIS+ never really caught on outside of Sun systems, and therefore few Unix and Unix-like operating systems (such as, for example, Linux) bother to support NIS+.
Installing NIS Clients and Servers
Most Linux distributions provide packages that include NIS client and server software, but if yours doesn't, or you simply want to install the latest and greatest, you'll need to build and install the following packages from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/NIS:
- ypbind-mt
The client NIS daemon
- ypserv
The NIS server
- yp-tools
The standard ...