Setting Up NIS Client Files to Use NIS Services

In this procedure, you specify which NIS maps that this client will use by adding a special NIS marker to various system files. In general, the system configuration files on an NIS client should have a minimum number of entries because the client should rely primarily on a server for its information. However, you may want to configure a few local entries that you do not want defined throughout the entire domain.

Actually, NIS handles client configuration files in two ways. Some configuration files are completely ignored once the ypbind daemon starts, and other files are appended to. If NIS ignores a particular file, the client will only know what its server's map contains. If NIS appends map information to a file, the client can use local information that no other host knows as well as NIS map information.