[NTLUG:Discuss] NIS capabilities? - noobie

[namit.bhalla at wipro.com]

On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 14:48 +0530, namit.bhalla at wipro.com wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I am completely new to the concept of NIS and wish to know what all
can
>> be done using NIS.
>> >From what I have read so far, NIS can be used to allow any user to
log
>> on to any client system 
>> on a network by having a central database of the passwd files etc.
>> I have also read that NIS can be used to "share a common set of
>> configuration files". 
>> Could someone please clarify what kind of central configuration is
>> possible using NIS?
>> How can an admin "control" the users in a domain using NIS? For
>> instance, in Windows, the 
>> admin can use Active Directory to establish a common date format for
all
>> clients.
>> Can NIS be used for such purposes.

On Thu, 2009-04-09, cjcox at acm.org wrote:
> No.  NIS presents simple key-value "maps" from a centralized
> location (does support a master-slave paradigm) which can be
> used by clients programs that understand how to pull that
> data.  There ARE tools that come with NIS that can be used to
> pull the key-value maps and store them somewhere (so a cheap
> arbitrary distribution mechanism can be built when certain
> clients don't understand NIS but can read from a file).

> So... what all understands NIS?  Good question.  If you have
> services that are PAM aware... then they are NIS aware, but NIS
> aware for PAM mainly means users (passwd map) and groups (group map)..
> and possibly netgroups (special map that contains groups lists of
users
> and/or hosts that can be used to allow/deny etc access).

> With NIS it's easy to setup users and groups that can be used
> across all *ix systems.  You can think of it like /etc/passwd
> and /etc/group, except one source of that for all machines.

> Another popular thing is to push "auto" maps through NIS.  This are
> files that can be used by the autofs (autmounter) process on
> *ix boxes to control (usually) the NFS client mounts for boxes.

> You often see the two ideas (users/groups and autofs) used to
> create a common set of users and their home directories across
> a network.  Thus, I log in as "chris" and I always see the same
> home directory, no matter which box I'm accessing.

> NIS existed before DNS (as far as Sun is concerned), so NIS
> CAN push out a host map (think of /etc/hosts).  But IMHO, don't
> do that, use DNS instead.

> Most mail clients can honor a NIS aliases map for mail aliases... but
> again, that's probably handled somewhere else.

> I guess, all in all, it's not an easy question to give a pat
> answer to.  You CAN do quite a lot with NIS (really... you can).
> But, in general, unless you want to spend a lot of time on
> each and every client, the safest most portable and useful things
> you can use NIS for are making user/groups and automounter maps
> available throughout the network.


Thanks Chris for the detailed answer.
That actually leads me to the next question - in *ix world, what do we
have 
that is analogous to AD in Windows? [perhaps I am going off-topic here].
That is, how can an admin enforce policies across an enterprise?
I would imagine a server component that responds to LDAP requests and an

LDAP client. Is that correct?


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