Selecting a Naming Service

When FNS constructs the bindings in the initial context for a machine, it does so on the basis of a particular naming service.

You can choose which name service FNS is to use with the fnselect command. The name service setting you specify with fnselect affects the entire machine, all applications running on that machine, and all users logged in to that machine.

Only root can run fnselect. The command syntax is:

fnselect [-D] [namesvc]

For example, to select NIS+ as a machine's name service:

#fnselect nisplus

For example, to select the default as a machine's name service and print the name of the service used to generate the FNS initial context:

#fnselect -D default

Default Naming Service

If you do not designate a naming service with fnselect, FNS uses the default naming service. The default naming service is determined by FNS based on the name service that the machine is using. If the machine is an NIS+ client, FNS uses NIS+ as the name service. If the machine is a NIS client, FNS uses NIS. If the machine is neither an NIS+ nor a NIS client, FNS uses /etc files as the machine's default name service.

When NIS+ and NIS Coexist

In rare cases you may need to access both NIS+ and NIS-based contexts. For example, you might have a NIS server running that is itself an NIS+ client. In this situation, you use the fnselect command to select the enterprise-level naming service that you want to work with.