How to use NIS to maintain host information
As with DNS, NIS enables you to centrally maintain host information. In addition, NIS enables you to maintain user information.
NIS
provides the following methods for storage system host-name
resolution:
- Using the /etc/hosts file on the NIS server that you can download to your storage system's default volume for local host-name lookup.
- Using a hosts map, maintained as a database on the NIS server,
which your storage system queries in a host lookup request across
the network.
- Using the ipnodes map, maintained as a database on the NIS server,
which is used for host lookup when IPv6 is enabled on your storage system.
Note: The ipnodes database is supported only on Solaris NIS servers for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.
To resolve a host name to an address, your storage system (with IPv6 enabled) first looks in the ipnodes database. If the IP address is not present in the ipnodes database, the application looks in the hosts database. However, if IPv6 is not enabled, then your storage system looks only
in the hosts database and does not refer the ipnodes database.
- How using NIS slaves can improve performance
Using an NIS slave on your storage system can improve the performance of your storage system. Host-name resolution by using a hosts map can have a performance impact because each query for the hosts map is sent across the network to the NIS server.
- How an NIS master is selected
If you enable the NIS slave on your storage system, the NIS servers listed with the nis.servers option are contacted to determine the master NIS server. The NIS master can be different from the servers that are listed with the nis.servers option. In such a case, the servers listed with the nis.servers option inform the slave about the master server.
- NIS slave guidelines
You should keep certain guidelines in mind when using an NIS slave.
- Ways to configure NIS for host lookups
You can configure your storage system to use one or more NIS servers either during the setup procedure or later using the Data ONTAP command line or FilerView.
- How to configure NIS with Data ONTAP interfaces
You can enable NIS and set NIS configuration values with either of these Data ONTAP interfaces: the command-line interface or FilerView.
- NIS information you can view
You can view information about NIS master and slave servers, netgroup caches, and performance statistics.
- NIS administrative commands
You might want to know the names of the NIS administrative commands and the functions they perform.
