Name Services and ypbind

Name services make it possible to convert between IP addresses and system names.

The most basic name service solution on a ChorusOS system consists of using the inetNShost(1CC) daemon that obtains information from the /etc/hosts file, or /etc/networks file.

ChorusOS systems usually rely on other systems to provide name services, however.

The inetNSdns(1M) daemon calls Domain Name Servers listed in /etc/resolv.conf to obtain the information it needs. You can also pass Domain Name server IP addresses to the inetNSdns daemon when you start it.

The inetNSnis(1M) daemon calls the Network Information Services Name Server for the domain you set using the domainname(1CC) command. The inetNSnis command also relies on the portmap(1M) and ypbind(1M) daemons.

Example 7-1 Binding to an NIS Server

The following example configures the NIS daemon for the fictitious an.example.COM domain:

$ rsh target arun /bin/domainname an.example.COM
started aid = 22
$ rsh target arun /etc/portmap&
started aid = 22
$ rsh target arun /bin/ypbind&
started aid = 23
$ rsh target arun /bin/inetNSnis&
started aid = 23

Note that the actors in this example are normally found in a file system outside the system image, such as a root file system located on the host.

The inetNSien116(1M) daemon calls a UDP name server as specified in IEN116 to obtain the information it needs. The IP address of the UDP name server is passed to inetNSien116 when the daemon is started. Note that the name server causes gethostbyaddr(3STDC) to return a NULL value.