Modifying and Using the Makefile

You can modify the Makefile provided by default in /var/yp to suit your needs. You can add or delete maps, and you can change the names of some of the directories.

Keep an unmodified copy of the original Makefile for future reference.

Working With the Makefile

To add a new NIS map, you must get copies of the ndbm files for the map into the /var/yp/domainname directory on each of the NIS servers in the domain. This is normally done for you by the Makefile. After deciding which NIS server is the master of the map, modify the Makefile on the master server so that you can conveniently rebuild the map. Different servers can be masters of different maps, but in most cases this leads to administrative confusion. Try to set only one server as the master of all maps.

Typically a human-readable text file is filtered through awk, sed, or grep to make it suitable for input to makedbm. Refer to the default Makefile for examples. See the make(1S) for general information about the make command.

Use the mechanisms already in place in the Makefile when deciding how to create dependencies that make will recognize. Be aware that make is very sensitive to the presence or absence of tabs at the beginning of lines within the dependency rules. A missing tab can invalidate an entry that is otherwise well formed.

Adding an entry to the Makefile involves the following.

• Adding the name of the database to the all rule

• Writing the time rule

• Adding the rule for the database

For example, in order for the Makefile to work on automounter input files, you would have to add the auto_direct.time and auto_home.time maps to the NIS database.

To add these maps to the NIS database you need to modify the Makefile.

Changing Makefile Macros/Variables

You can change the settings of the variables defined at the top of the Makefile by changing the value to the right of the equal sign (=). For instance, if you do not want to use the files located in /etc as input for the maps, but you would rather use files located in another directory, such as /var/etc/domainname, you should change DIR from DIR=/etc to DIR=/var/etc/domainname. You should also change PWDIR from PWDIR=/etc to PWDIR=/var/etc/domainname.

The variables are the following.

• DIR= The directory containing all of the NIS input files except passwd and shadow. The default value is /etc. Since it is not good practice to use the files in the master server's /etc directory as NIS input files, you should change this value.

• PWDIR= The directory containing the passwd and shadow NIS input files. Since it is not good practice to use the files in the master server's /etc directory as NIS input files, you should change this value.

• DOM= The NIS domain name. The default value of DOM is set using the domainname command. However, most NIS commands use the current machine's domain which is set in the machine's /etc/defaultdomain file.