What Is NIS? (network Information Service)

Network Information Service is a protocol that was designed o make authentication easy and any related services on a network fo multiple UNIX or Linux systems. There a several types of NIS, some are:

- NIS+
- NIS YP
- NIS Switch(NYS)
- Name Swtich Service (NSS)


the orgianl NIS was called Yellow Pages, but i guess there was a dispute over registered mark in some countries, so they changed it. Most NIS utilities do include yp in their names. depending on the distribution you have.

just remember that NIS is associated with yp files

the ypbind NIS package's main configuration file is: /etc/yp.conf

typical configuration file may look like this:

# /etc/yp.conf - ypbind configuration file
# Valid entries are
#
# domain NISDOMAIN server HOSTNAME
#       Use server HOSTNAME for the domain NISDOMAIN.
#
# domain NISDOMAIN broadcast
#       Use  broadcast  on  the local net for domain NISDOMAIN
#
# domain NISDOMAIN slp
#       Query local SLP server for ypserver supporting NISDOMAIN
#
# ypserver HOSTNAME
#       Use server HOSTNAME for the  local  domain.  The
#       IP-address of server must be listed in /etc/hosts.
#
# broadcast
#       If no server for the default domain is specified or
#       none of them is rechable, try a broadcast call to
#       find a server.
#