Name Service Switch

NIS+ works in conjunction with a separate facility called the Name Service Switch. The Name Service Switch, sometimes referred to as “the Switch,” enables Solaris-based workstations to obtain their information from more than one network information service. They can get the information from local, or /etc files, from NIS maps, from DNS zone files, or from NIS+ tables. The Switch not only offers a choice of sources, but allows a workstation to specify different sources for different types of information. The name service is configured through the file /etc/nsswitch.conf.