How to Bypass the NIS Name Service

Bypassing the NIS name service protects the Sun Cluster Support for Oracle RAC data service against a failure of a cluster node's public network. A failure of a cluster node's public network might cause the NIS name service to become unavailable. If Sun Cluster Support for Oracle RAC refers to the NIS name service, unavailability of the name service might cause the Sun Cluster Support for Oracle RAC data service to fail.

Bypassing the NIS name service ensures that the Sun Cluster Support for Oracle RAC data service does not refer to the NIS name service when the data service sets the user identifier (ID). The Sun Cluster Support for Oracle RAC data service sets the user ID when the data service starts or stops the database.

1. Become superuser on all nodes where Sun Cluster Support for Oracle RAC can run.

2. On each node, include the following entries in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

   passwd:    files [NOTFOUND=return] nis [TRYAGAIN=0]
   publickey: files [NOTFOUND=return] nis [TRYAGAIN=0]
   project:   files [NOTFOUND=return] nis [TRYAGAIN=0]
   group:     files [NOTFOUND=return] nis [TRYAGAIN=0]

   For more information about the /etc/nsswitch.conf file, see the nsswitch.conf(4) man page.

Next Steps

Go to How to Create the DBA Group and the DBA User Accounts.