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Chapter 14NIS in conjunction with NFS can offer roaming users profile that will allow usersto log into any of the NIS member workstations and feel like they're at home (samehome directory and configuration).Obviously, NIS follows Client/Server model in which there is at least one server(master server), and optionally one or more slave servers.There are also one or more clients that are members of the "NIS Domain". This iscalled binding. The ypbind(8) daemon takes care of binding on the client machines.NIS ServerTo set up a NIS server, you should take a few steps. The first step is choosingyour NIS domain name. The NIS domain name is a name that your NIS domainis identified with. The benefit of identifying a domain by name is that you mayhave multiple domains, each with its own set of workstations running on the samenetwork without any interference.As the NIS domain name is not necessarily your DNS domain name,it does not follow DNS naming rules. You may choose your own NISdomain name in order to avoid confusion. However, you are also free touse your DNS domain name as NIS domain name.Either on a server or a client, you should specify the domain name in the /etc/rc.conf configuration file:nisdomainname="example-domain"You should also enable NIS server daemon to run during system startup, asshown here:nis_server_enable="YES"These are the two parameters which you need to set up a NIS domain server.However, there are a few other variables that we will discuss later in this chapter.Initializing NIS ServerIt is necessary to initialize the NIS server. By initializing you will create a default setof centralized database files and make your server ready to serve the configurationdatabases to the clients.NIS database files are kept under the /var/yp subdirectory. On a brand-newinstallation, you will have a Makefile under this directory, that will be used later toinitialize the NIS server.[ 255 ]