When Server Preferences Take Effect

Changes you make to a machine or subnet's server preferences normally do not take effect on a given machine until that machine updates it nis_cachemgr data. When the nis_cachemgr of a machine updates its server-use information depends on whether the machine is obtaining its server preferences from a global client_info table or a local /var/nis/client_info file (see "Global Table or Local File").

• Global table. The cache managers of machines obtaining their server preferences from global tables update their server preferences whenever the machine is booted or whenever the Time-to-live (TTL) value expires for the client_info table. By default, this TTL value is 12 hours, but you can change that as described in "Changing the Time-to-Live of an Object".

• Local file. The cache managers of machines obtaining their server preferences from local files update their server preferences every 12 hours or whenever you run nisprefadm to change a server preference. (Rebooting the machine does not update the cache manager's server preference information.)

However, you can force server preference changes to take effect immediately by running nisprefadm with the -F option. The -F option forces nis_cachemgr to immediately update its information. See "How to Immediately Implement Preference Changes" for details.